Kevin Anchi

Many people have been noticing a wide shuffle in search relevancy scores recently. Some of those well in the know attribute this to latent semantic indexing. Even if they are not using LSI, Google has likely been using other word relationship technologies for a while, but recently increased its weighting. How Does Latent Semantic Indexing Work? Latent semantic indexing allows a search engine to determine what a page is about outside of specifically matching search query text. A page about Apple computers will likely naturally have terms such as iMac or iPod on it. Latent semantic indexing adds an important step to the document indexing process. In addition to recording which keywords a document contains, the method examines the document collection as a whole, to see which other documents contain some of those same words. LSI considers documents that have many words in common to be semantically close, and ones with few words in common to be semantically distant. This simple method corr

Competitive research is an area that’s either completely overlooked by a brand, or taken to an extreme level  while missing the basic goals that need to be reached. Because competitive research becomes a cornerstone for strategy development, it’s important to research from inside the trees, and outside of the forest. Overall, brands need to: Identify what others are already doing in the space, and how successful they are. Identify areas of opportunity and weaknesses within their specific vertical. Identify what tactics a competitor is using to gain a competitive advantage. What We’re Doing We approach competitive research with these fundamental questions: What is their link building strategy? How are they leveraging social media? Identify areas of  weakness  or  opportunity  in their strategy (notice whether they’re focusing strictly on their brand, or expanding into other social areas for maximum reach). How all these facets work together: focus on their overall “marketi

Would you say you’re well-versed in zoology, construction, and acupuncture? You might be familiar with one if you’re lucky, but odds are you’re not an expert at these three subjects. That’s okay, because it’s expected:  it’s impossible for someone to know everything. Here at BlueGlass, we’re great marketers, thinkers, creators, communicators, and more. However, we can’t pretend to be experts in paleontology, astrology, and every other subject in the world  and  its presence on the Internet. That’s why we make it a priority to learn… When it comes to our clients, who are from many different industries, we’ve mastered the craft of understanding a client’s work, researching what we need to know, communicating it effectively, and turning our new-found knowledge into results. It’s an involved mission we engage in each and every day. So how does it work? At BlueGlass, it’s broken down into three stages: This post will delve into the process during each stage and allow you to see how almost e

Coming up with ideas that are  relevant to your audience ,  useful , and  interesting  is one of the most difficult parts of creating great content. Part of this struggle lies in the way many people approach creativity; they wait until they need an idea to start brainstorming.  Caveat to this approach:  you can’t force a brilliant idea. If you’re creating content around the same  topic or industry ,  make idea generation part of your everyday routine.  Adopting habits that encourage more creative thinking will keep you one step ahead of the sometimes futile process of idea generation. Then, you’ll always have a collection of ideas on deck to choose from as new content needs arise. Set aside 30 minutes a day for one of the below techniques to stay inspired, keep your mind sharp, and never run out of ideas… How to Generate a Constant Supply of Ideas 1. Embrace Bad Ideas Write down every idea you have, no matter how terrible. Don’t get caught up on whether or not your idea is good yet. Wh

Affiliate Marketing is a popular method of promoting web businesses in which an affiliate is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. It is a modern variation of the practice of paying finder's-fees for the introduction of new clients to a business. Compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit (Pay-per-click), registrant (Pay-per-lead), or a commission for each customer or sale (Pay-per-Sale). The most attractive aspect of affiliate marketing, from the merchant's viewpoint, is that no payment is due to an affiliate until results are realized. Some e-commerce sites, such as Amazon.com run their own affiliate programs while other e-commerce vendors use third party services provided by intermediaries like CommissionJunction.com, and LinkShare.com to track traffic or sales that are referred from affiliates. Some businesses owe much of their growth and success to this marketing technique. Merchants who are considering a

April 24 th 2012 is a day that will be remembered as the launch of one of the biggest attacks against Webspam by Google’s Search Quality Team: the Penguin Update . Although Google claims that only 3.1% of the search queries were affected, many webmasters believe that this update has caused more damage than the Panda update (which allegedly affected 12% of search queries). With the Penguin Update, Google’s message is clear: it will not tolerate any form of SEO that is not 100% Whitehat . Call it black, grey, blue or pink hat; it all comes down to the same thing for Google: manipulation . Many small business owners that were hit by this update are now asking: “I lost all my traffic! What now? Is my business ruined?” . The short answer is: not necessarily! Fix your issues, “whiten your hat” and most importantly diversify your sources of traffic . As Matt Cutts stated, Google penalties are NOT forever .  If you fix the underlying issues that are causing problems, there is a good chance