Timothy Carter

The online marketing and SEO industry is a highly competitive arena. Businesses from all niches vie for the top spot to place their products and services before a target audience doing search. With their techno savvy, competitors could easily swallow you up. If you’re running a business that operates only online, you need to master effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Time is probably not on your side, especially if you don’t have the necessary resources to run a team of Internet marketing specialists. If that’s the case, you would probably benefit from professional SEO services. Hiring an SEO agency will save you time and money, and will ensure you compete well in the cutthroat world of digital marketing. This is definitely a time to proceed with caution, however. Plenty of entities out there claim to be “experts in the field” of digital marketing or SEO. With hundreds of SEO companies on the market, how do you choose the right one? To simplify your search for the right SEO service, you need to ask the right questions. That will enable you to zero in on the company that can help you achieve your marketing goals —  without bogging you down in the details and possibly breaking the bank. But first: What is SEO? SEO is the process of improving the online visibility of a website in a search engine’s organic section. It costs nothing to get listed, but to get to the top requires a thorough understanding of the process. SEO requires significant chunks of time and consistent labor to achieve first-page ranking on Google. With the rise of Social SEO — the inclusion of Social Media Signals in SEO calculations — there’s even more work to do now, just to be able to compete in the ever-evolving world of digital marketing. Can companies simply ignore SEO? Certainly not! Tests have shown that users pretty much depend only on the information that appears on the first page of Google and Bing searches. The rest usually go unregarded. So if web searchers don’t see you on Google’s first page, they’ll go to your competitors instead. That’s why you need to hire the right SEO company. Let’s look at some of the key questions you need to ask an SEO provider before you choose to hire them. What marketing services do you offer? Some SEO agencies have a bench that is both deep and wide. Some do not. It is best to determine if the agency even has the chops to do the work internally. And, if they are outsourcing any of the SEO, they should explicitly let you know which pieces are not being done in house. Many SEO agencies rely on partnerships for things like white label link building services and general white label SEO, but there are a whole host of other services to consider when hiring a full-service digital marketing agency: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services (on-page vs. off-page) Keyword research Content creation and optimization Landing page optimization Web design & development Conversion rate optimization Link building strategy development Social media marketing Content creation Community management SEM/PPC management Reporting or analytics for campaigns White Hat SEO compliance Understanding first what the agency can do, will help you determine whether you can rely on them for all your marketing needs or just a few select niche requirements for your site. Does your SEO experience extend to my industry? via GIPHY It’s crucial to learn not only how much experience a prospective SEO firm has; it’s at least as important to determine the depth of their experience in your particular industry. In addition, try to determine their rate of success in achieving their clients’ goals. How will you measure the success of my campaign? What are my KPIs (key performance indicators) and how can I trust you to provide campaign guidance on things like return on investment (ROI)? The success of an SEO campaign can be measured in a number of ways. The most important metrics to consider include website traffic, organic visibility in search engines, keyword rankings, conversions on the website and (most importantly) revenue driven and directly attributable to SEO efforts. Website traffic can be measured by looking at the number of visits and the duration of time spent on the website. It is important to look at both the number of visits, as well as the quality and origin of these visits to ensure that they are actually coming from organic search sources. Organic search visibility should be tracked to monitor how often the website appears on SERPs (search engine result pages) for relevant searches. Tracking keyword rankings is an important metric because it helps identify which keywords are driving traffic to the website. Website conversions can be measured by tracking the total number of conversions, as well as the conversion rate (the ratio between visitors and those who actually completed an action). Website revenue attributable to search should give you a clear indication of whether or not the SEO strategy is working. Keep in mind, not all organic traffic is good traffic. Make sure the metrics you use are not simply vanity metrics and that they actually drive real results. How do you build links to improve SEO? Building links for improving SEO is a critical component of any successful search engine optimization strategy. Links from other websites are one of the most important factors in determining how well your website performs in organic search results. By creating quality content and building relationships with other websites and high-profile online publishers, you should be able obtain highly relevant and authoritative links to your website which will help improve your links and rankings in the SERPs. But not all SEO companies have the right level of quality and quantity to do link building at scale. You should ask your SEO agency what link building strategies they use and how they will go about obtaining high-quality links from other websites, particularly those within your niche. Ask for examples of successful link

As the name suggests, a drip marketing campaign is when you keep your customers engaged with your brand by sending them email marketing updates on new products or promotions. A well-executed drip marketing campaign can be one of the best ways to generate revenue for an eCommerce business because it will allow you to create a long-term customer base. In this article, we are going to explore how to execute the perfect drip marketing strategy and give you some resources that could help make your email drip campaigns even more successful. What is a Drip Marketing Campaign? Drip marketing campaigns are when you keep your customers engaged with your brand by sending them email drip marketing updates on new products or promotions. This is a promotional strategy that has been around for quite some time but it has become more popular in recent years because people don’t have to constantly be checking their inboxes and social media feeds to receive the latest news from brands they love. A well-executed drip campaign can be one of the best ways to generate revenue if you’re running an eCommerce business because it will allow you to create a long-term customer base instead of just focusing on instant sales and conversions, which might end up costing you money down the line as those buyers may not return again. If you’re an SEO agency, email drip campaigns are a great way of optimizing link building outreach campaigns. Why are Drip Marketing Campaigns Important? Drip marketing campaigns are important because they create a long-term customer base for your business. This is especially true if you’re running an eCommerce site that has physical products that need to be shipped and the customers can’t just come back tomorrow or in two days’ time when their immediate needs have been fulfilled. Plus, it’s not as easy to reach out to people on social media anymore since everyone is now used to being bombarded with promotional messages all day every day – which means there will always be new subscribers who may never see those initial emails from you without a drip campaign going on at the same time. How Do Drip Marketing Campaigns Work? Drip marketing campaigns work by sending out email updates that keep your customers engaged and encourage them to buy more from you. You can use marketing automation software like Mailchimp or Instantly, which is free for up to 2000 subscribers, or even a simple service such as Campaign Monitor that allows you to create drip campaigns without any coding knowledge required. Both will allow you to set how often the emails are sent, what content they contain, and who’s on the list of recipients – meaning it’ll take just one hour per week (or less) if you have marketing automation set up everything else in terms of social media posts and other online tasks. How to Create a Drip Marketing Campaign Creating a drip marketing campaign is a relatively simple process. Here are all the steps (including ecommerce marketing tools) you need to follow to get the job done: Segment Your Email List: The first step is to segment your email list so you know who should be receiving each type of content. For example, if you have an eCommerce site with a physical product that needs to be shipped and it’s not something that can just be fulfilled tomorrow or in two days’ time when the customers need them, then they’re going to want updates on new products and promotions – so create one drip campaign for those people alone. Create Personalized Emails: The second step is to create personalized emails tailored for each customer segment. So, if you’re sending out promotional content about new products or promotions, then the email should contain a link that will take them directly to your product page on your website and encourage them to buy it now instead of later when they might be shopping elsewhere. If you’re creating an informational drip campaign with updates on what’s happening in other parts of the company such as upcoming events, team member profiles, etc., then make sure those messages don’t just talk about yourself but also include information from others – like testimonials from happy customers who have bought their first pair of shoes from you yesterday! Enhance Your Subject Lines: The third step is to enhance your subject lines so they’re enticing enough for those people who are inundated with promotional emails every day. Try using a simple formula such as “Introducing a Brand New Product!” or “Special Offer! Buy Now and Get 50% Off!”. You can also add words that will make them curious like “New” or “Secret” to draw more attention to your campaign. Add Some Personality: The fourth step is to add some personality. You’ve likely heard the old adage “people buy people” and it’s true. So, take a moment to think about what customers love when they read your emails or engage with your brand on social media posts, then use that information as inspiration for how you should write your emails. Create a Sequence for Your Drip Emails: The fifth step is to create a sequence for your drip emails – so you know when it’s time to send the next one and what information should be included in that email. For example, if this is an eCommerce site with physical products then you want a new release promotion every two weeks or so – meaning there will always be those customers who need these updates but maybe they’ll never see them without the automated process of sending out periodic emails. The more structured your campaign is, the better it’ll perform. Test and Optimize: Once your drip campaign is live, give it some time before you conduct an A/B test. Once you measure your campaign’s performance, find some areas of improvement. Finally, conduct split tests to improve your campaign and optimize accordingly. Need Help With Drip Marketing Campaigns? Creating a drip marketing

Combine phenomenal copywriting skills with SEO, and your content marketing strategy will be on the road to gaining highly targeted readers that instantly become hot leads and customers. But how do you come up with persuasive blog and content copy that’s also highly optimized for search? You can either: Hire our blog & content writing service or Do it yourself (start your own blog and write your own content) If you opt for the latter, we suggest following this basic, but powerful process. What does it mean to write for SEO? This definition of SEO writing from Ahrefs explains it nicely: SEO writing is the process of researching, outlining, creating, and optimizing content to rank for a target keyword in Google and other search engines. Write your content for people and optimize it for search. Your web presence won’t get far without quality content, but it’s equally important to add the elements that make it consumable for search engines. Start with good writing. Crap, I got a D in English class, you think. Well, don’t worry. We have plenty of free advice about SEO copywriting and creating quality content. In this post, we want to focus more on the optimization part. Keyword Research & Content Gap Analysis Other than writing well, choosing a keyword is probably the most important part of this process because it’s essential for getting found on search engines. Use keyword research tools to help you find relevant keywords that have 1) low competition, and 2) a good amount of search. There are lots of free and paid keyword research tools available, but I recommend Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Google’s very own keyword research tool helps you find and target keywords by competition level (low, medium, or high), search volume (local or global), and match type (exact, phrase, or broad match). We also actively use Ahrefs for the following: Content gap analysis. Compare your site against competitors to know where your existing content is deficient or what target keywords you may not be targeting or ranking for but should. Keyword search volume analysis. Using Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, find opportunities in various low and zero volume search phrases as well as high volume keywords that you can target for SEO purposes.     That’s why it’s important that when you write copy, first create an outline of what you plan to write. You’ll want to visualize what points you want to make, and how to break those points into smaller chunks so that readers can easily scan through it while still absorbing information. The article’s most important points should be found in the headline, sub-headlines, bullet points, and in the first few lines of every paragraph. To attract your target customer when you’re searching for a term, you need to stand out against the crowd of competitors and other businesses. Keywords, in a sense, act like banners that say, “Hey!  Hello? I’m over here, and this is what my web page is about” and drive visitors to your site. They are terms and phrases that help humans and search engines identify the topics that your content covers. One way to narrow down on a primary keyword for your piece of content is to check how competitive certain search terms are. In your favorite keyword tool enter the keyword or phrase you’re thinking of and see what comes up. The keywords and phrases with the higher search volume numbers are the more competitive ones and therefore harder to rank for. Singular keywords like “shoes” are usually the most competitive. Therefore, you’re probably better off with long-tail keywords, which are usually more specific and less common than other keywords. An example of this would be choosing “striped rubber ducks” over “rubber ducks.” Outline & Begin Your Draft An outline keeps you organized and provides a useful frame of reference. You can keep it high-level or granular. Highlight the main points your content will cover, and determine subheadings and sub-points. In our outline, make sure you answer the questions: Who am I writing for? What’s the topic? Why should they care about the topic? Next, go forth and draft! This is where you empathize with the user’s pain points. Paint a picture of where they’ve been, where they are, and how you’ll help them get there. Give tangible examples and guide them with practical steps at each point in their journey. Start with a Solid Promise Your headline, or subject line for emails, should make a bold promise that your target audience couldn’t possibly ignore. The promise within the headline should compel your audience to want to consume the entire message below. A headline such as “50% Off for the First 10 Subscribers” has all the elements of a sure hit. Other headlines that offer gripping promises tend to include terms like Guaranteed, Fast, In Two Days, etc. This strategy works best for marketers who have already established strong relationships and trust with their customers. However, nothing says a newbie marketer mustn’t use this technique in a headline, especially if he or she can honestly deliver on a bold promise. Write for “Skimmers” The odds are relatively good that you’re simply scanning or skimming this very blog post. That’s actually how most people normally consume content online. In fact, the heat map data confirms it: Write a Killer Headline & Meta Description So, you have a layout of how your copy will look; it’s now time to hook potential readers with a killer, magnetic headline. Magnetic headlines and meta descriptions should compel potential readers to want to read your article. Some elements of a powerful and magnetic headline or meta description include: A power word such as “Amazing”, “Revealed”, “Introducing” A number (Top 3, Top 10, Five Things You Need to Know, etc.) Statement of at least two bold claims (promise) Keywords The keywords should be included within the headline and meta description in order to optimize for SEO, since the headline generally becomes the title tag of the page

Well, the robot takeover is finally here. Today’s robots aren’t just building cars or cooking pasta; they’ve having full-blown conversations and writing articles (not unlike this one). That’s right. Thanks to some major breakthroughs in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), we now have sophisticated tools capable of generating human-like text. But there are also AI content detection tools as well. Some of you aren’t surprised by this. After all, AI-written articles have been published in mainstream media sources for many years now. You’ve probably even read one of these AI-written articles without even realizing it. The difference is the level of sophistication present. Previously, AI content generation tools were fundamentally limited to only producing articles on easily digestible topics, like stock reports or sports updates. But these days, machine generated content is everywhere and covers everything. And it’s practically indistinguishable from human-written content… Or is it? Let’s find out. What Is AI-Generated Content? AI-generated content is any text, message, article, or another type of content produced by a machine learning algorithm. Typically, a user can enter a prompt, guiding the AI to write about a certain topic, asking you a question, or directing it to cover some specific event. In response to the prompt, the AI comes to life and produces something readable, understandable, and hopefully, effective. AI content creation has also been touted for its ability to scale content velocity for some of the biggest websites online. OpenAI’s latest project, ChatGPT, is an example of this. In the organization’s own words, “We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow-up questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.” How does it work? The ChatGPT language model uses both supervised learning and reinforcement learning, though it uses reinforcement learning more heavily, relying on human feedback to fine-tune itself. Basically, it observes and attempts to mimic examples of human language across a practically infinite number of contexts; then, it “interacts” with humans, who can guide it to more acceptable and desirable language outputs. With millions of tiny feedback loops helping the AI model “understand” language, it’s only a matter of time before it masters the use of language. As we’ll see, this is not “true” mastery. The AI in this context has no cerebral understanding of the subject matter, though it might appear that way to an outsider. The AI is not truly thinking about what it says, nor is it performing any advanced cognitive functionality in processing the topic. Instead, the AI is simply observing and mimicking patterns that it sees replicated all over the web and in the prompts and responses of users it interacts with. After a few billion examples, it becomes trivially easy for the AI to mimic conventional English sentence structures, using nouns, verbs, and adjectives completely appropriately. After a few billion more examples, and some context-specific information, it can write up a short couple of paragraphs about why and how the Industrial Revolution happened. Of course, ChatGPT is just one example of an AI generated content application. In fact, we’re poised to see an explosion of AI content generation tools in the next few years as entrepreneurs and disruptive innovators race to see who can come up with the most profitable application for this new technology. We’ll likely see tools specifically geared for individual use cases, like generating news stories within a specific category, writing for SEO, writing college essays, and even generating business emails. What a time to be a human writer. Or reader. Why AI Generated Content Is a Problem Leaving aside some tongue-in-cheek jokes I could make about my own job insecurity, it’s fair to say that AI generated content has the potential to be problematic, and in more than one area. Consider this small selection of possibilities. Academic misconduct. The world of academics is already freaking out about the possibility of students using AI to generate essays, responses for homework assignments, and more. If it’s impossible, or even difficult to tell the difference between an essay written by a student and one generated by a machine, how can we be sure we’re grading and rewarding students appropriately? Can you now get a degree in a field like English just because you know how to use ChatGPT somewhat effectively? Content spam. Content spam is another potential problem. For years, the search engine optimization (SEO) industry has relied heavily on the work of human writers. Writing onsite content, offsite content, and building backlinks establishes the authority of a website and allows it to rank higher in search engines. And even with competent humans doing the writing, the web has been overloaded with aggressive content production. Everywhere you look, there are fluffy articles and promotional pieces providing minimal information but serving a purpose for SEO. The problem is only going to get worse when marketers can generate entire articles in seconds. Inaccuracies and fake news. ChatGPT is specifically developed with safeguards to prevent it from being influenced by bias or reporting inaccurate information. But how reliable are these safeguards going to be? And could they conceivably apply to all AI content generation tools? In any case, inaccuracies and fake news are a legitimate concern. AI Content Detection Tools GPT-2 Output Detector from HuggingFace GPT-2 Output Detector Demo by HuggingFace is open source, free and requires no registration to gain immediate access. The lack of limitations often overloads the server so the tool doesn’t even work. It’s very high quality and probably the best of the several we have outlined here. GPT Writer AI Content Detecting Tool GPT – Writer is a great, dependable AI detecting tool that can be accessed for free. Although it proved to be slightly less reliable than GPT-2 in my experience, it was still able to successfully identify the fact that my content piece wasn’t crafted by a human being. Content at Scale AI Detector – Content at Scale is a

How would you like to gain at least 100 readers for your new blog post every day? How about 200? There’s really no cap to how many readers your blog could attract on a daily basis, as long as you provide unique, interesting, useful, timely, and relevant content. But the sad truth is that most blogs receive zero blog traffic and shares: Despite this example of the Pareto Principle, all indicators point to the notion that blogging continues to gain in popularity and shows no sign of slowing down. Why? Sure, Facebook-ing and micro-blogging with Twitter are hot, but a lot of people still prefer the meatier stuff that only blogging can deliver. Blogging has all the benefits that every Internet marketer could ever want: One of the greatest platforms for driving or increase blog traffic A great tool for sharing useful information An unbeatable platform for making opinions known, both by the blogger and his or her audience Useful for optimizing content for search engines A terrific instrument for gaining and retaining customers However, it’s not enough just to set up a blog to attract readership. There are best practices and guidelines every blogger should follow for success. Let’s take a look at each important facet of making a blog a worthwhile and profitable endeavor in your greater marketing campaign. Preparing Your Blogging Platform The platform Choose the best blogging platform for your needs. There are several out there, and they share certain common features, but some are highly preferred and recommended by the most knowledgeable members of the blogging community. If you are just starting your blog, check out Blogger.com, a blogging platform owned by no less than Google. Blogger.com seems to be a popular choice among newbie bloggers for its ease of use. You can also give Tumblr and WordPress.com a try. However, if you are looking for some serious blogging features in terms of flexibility and extensibility, WordPress is the top choice. WordPress serves as host to millions of blogs and is the most popular option for most bloggers. It offers a wide range of features and plugins that make a blog powerful, user-friendly, and attractive to search engines. Choosing the right plugins This especially applies to blogs hosted in WordPress. WordPress offers bloggers extremely useful and powerful plugins that automate some of the most crucial aspects of blogging. There are plugins for design and layout. There are plugins for automating internal SEO linking such as popular posts. There are also plugins to integrate your social media efforts into your blogging. And then there are plugins for properly optimizing your blog. When hunting for the right plugins for your needs, don’t choose on your own. Pick those that come highly recommended by other blogs/bloggers such as the ones suggested here. Preparing your blog for RSS RSS is one feature that every newbie blogger should take advantage of for better exposure. That’s because a lot of readers today still check out updates from their favorite blogs through RSS readers, which provides a convenient method for them to track topics under one roof. Enabling RSS aggregator for your blog helps readers follow it conveniently. Most blogging platforms have a built-in RSS feature. If you are using a blogging platform that does not have this feature built in, however, be sure to instruct readers on how to include your blog into their favorite RSS feed reader. Preparing Your Blog’s Content Choosing the subject of your blog The chances of your succeeding in blogging will depend on the demand for the subject you choose to blog about. Finding a niche about which to blog is crucial if you are to corner a segment of the online crowd. One way to figure out what people are interested in is to study trending topics via Google Trends. Google Trends lets you “listen in” on certain topics to figure out people’s relative level of interest — based on country, the type of content that drives traffic for a given subject, and even a list of terms that relate to the topic. There’s also Google Ads Keywords Tool, a tool that allows you to search for long tail keywords with the most number of searches. But perhaps the best way to start blogging is just to talk about stuff you are highly passionate about or are already an expert on. This provides an easy way for you come up with a list of subtopics that you can feature in the coming days without the trouble of having to do much research on them. Magnetic topics Writing about topics that are controversial and very timely, such as the presidential election, seems to guarantee massive readership. In fact, if you inject your own opinion on certain topics, people of a similar mind will like you. You should also encourage them to interact even more with you by posting their comments and arguing with your views. Don’t forget that people’s interactions and comments add weight to your blog’s traffic, which allows it to get noticed by the search engines even more. Click here for a complete list of quality blog title ideas and blog post ideas. How to Increase Readers to Your Blog (in 10 Steps) Content marketing is a great way to improve your customer relationships, increase your brand visibility, and earn more conversions from your site visitors. There’s only one problem: in order to get the benefits of your user generated content marketing strategy, you need to have a preliminary readership. Without a first set of eyes to see your content and spread the word, your inbound marketing investment might fizzle. Your brand’s current customers could serve as a first-line audience, but if you want to scale your visibility and start seeing real results, you’ll need to think bigger. Try using one of these 10 ways to attract new readers to your existing blog: 1. Post on Social Media. The first step is one of the easiest. Hopefully, if you’ve already got a blogging strategy under

When you see “new big thing in SEO” in an article title, you have every right to read with skepticism. SEO is fraught with ‘new things,’ ‘big things,’ constant change, too much hype, and a lot of misinformation. Co-citation isn’t exactly new, but its latest iteration and the attendant changes that it introduces into the SEO world are a pretty deal. This article will introduce the topic of co-citation or co-occurrence, and explain some of its ramifications. Understanding the Terms “Co-citation” and “Co-occurrence” Before explaining the nitty-gritty of these SEO trends, we need to explain the terms themselves. Co-citation and co-occurrence refer to roughly the same thing. The term co-occurrence is used by some SEOs to describe how keyword phrase association across same site can impact better results. Co-citation more specifically addresses the issue of how sites can affect the search rankings of other websites without the presence of an actual link. Based on this understanding, co-occurrence is distinct from co-citation. This article, however, uses the term co-citation to encompass both co-citation and co-occurrence. What is co-citation? The big idea of co-citation is rather simple, but you have to wrap your mind around it. Here’s how it happens. One Website A and Website B both link to Website C and Website D, but Website A and Website B don’t link to each other. Nonetheless, Website A and Website B are connected by means of co-citation. This method of understanding co-citation, however, is simplistic. Co-citation also involves the transitive property, which looks like this. Co-citation, then, establishes a relationship between two sites, even there are no high quality links between those two sites. The relationship of co-citation is established by contextual keywords and mutual links. Keep in mind that co-citation relationships are simultaneously happening across vast numbers of similar sites. But there’s more to co-citation than just halo authority via transitive relationships. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of co-citation is that it can elevate a site’s rankings without links and even in the absence of actual matched keywords. What’s the big deal about co-citation and co-occurrence? The reason why co-citation is such a fascinating trend is that it defies customary understanding of SEO best practices. Here’s an example. Let’s say that a website is winning in the search rankings for “best electric lawnmower.” When you visit this high-ranked website, however, you notice that it lacks the keyword “best electric lawnmower” in the title tag, in the meta description, in the anchor text, and maybe even in the written blog content itself. What’s going on? There may be a similar keywords synonyms, but no longtail matches, and little in the way of link juice. How in the world does this site rank so high? The answer is co-citation. Google associates similar terms with such websites, even when those sites are devoid of the classic SEO signals. It then awards such sites rank higher based on co-citation markers rather than customary SEO features. This is not to say that existing SEO practices are dead, nor are they less important. Instead, co-citation is an additional SEO reality of which we must be aware. Two Important Truths about Co-citation 1. Co-Citation is Fuzzy The thing we need to keep in mind is that co-citation resists cut-and-dried explanations of how exactly it works. There is no list of “co-citation best practices,” nor are there tools that can effectively measure co-citation. It is inherently immeasurable because of its vague nature and the aggregate algorithmic features that comprise it. Co-citation involves a host of signals that encompass a wide range of SEO features. There are additional fringe ranking factors that bear upon co-citation as a SERP-affecting event, such as: Social media signals Brand and entity association Increasingly effective contextual analysis by search engine Growing influence of similar keywords proximity factors (linking context) in search results Query volume, both for the brand/entity name and on the keyword research Every one of the features listed above bear upon SEO in general and upon co-citation specifically. This simply goes to prove the point that SEO is increasingly becoming something beyond manipulation. More and more, SEO is sliding out of our grasp, and depending upon the power of the google algorithm and the impact of millions of searches that people are conducting each day. 2. Co-Citation is a Paradigm Shift The second truth about co-citation involves its far-reaching implications. There are two types of SEO professionals — those who use novel tricks and those who employ classic and strategic maneuvers. Those who use the cute tricks will likely see jumps in search engine rankings, but no sustainable value. Successful SEO, on the other hand, endures. Those who use strategic maneuvers play it smart by understanding the google algorithm changes and responding accordingly. What we’re seeing in co-citation is a trend deeply rooted within a host of algorithmic components. Thus, co-citation can be considered a sustainable change that affect the way SEO is done for the long term. What does co-citation mean for the future? If we’re talking about a paradigm shift, what kinds of changes can we or should we expect for the future? Anchor text isn’t as important anymore. Rand Fishkin’s  Whiteboard Friday video on SEO Moz alerted many in the SEO community to the growing trend of co-citation in the Google algorithms. The article contains the prediction, ” anchor text is weakening and may be replaced.” While Fishkin’s declaration may be an overstatement, he’s on to something. As co-citation rises, we may see a concomitant decline of the importance of anchor text. Co-citation does not mean that SEO is dead; it’s just changing like always. The “SEO is Dead” group will always be around. In reality, SEO will live on as long there are search engines. SEO is still important, but the customary ways of optimizing may not have the importance they once held. This is nothing new, since SEO is always changing. If web pages doesn’t have lots of backlinks or other SEO best practices, they may still benefit from the SEO value of co-citation. Co-citation plays into