Houston's Internet Marketing Clinic

This how-to guide goes through the use of AI tools for content, YouTube, local SEO, social posts, and reviews without sapping creativity or hurting rankings. The emphasis is on keeping human expertise at the center while letting AI handle structure, cleanup, and speed. It is expected that by the end of the course, individuals will be able to: What AI Is Good For-And Where It Trips People Up There&...

[powerplay] For years, SEO professionals and website owners have been playing a guessing game with Google’s algorithm. We’ve analyzed rankings, tested theories, and tried to reverse-engineer what the search giant actually wants from our websites. But what if I told you that Google has actually been telling us exactly what they want all along—we just haven’t been looking in the ri...

As a small business owner, we all understand the plight of too much to do, not enough hours in a day and how we can cover more ground in less time. So enter AI. As alluring as it is and as helpful as it can be, when it comes to a website design and SEO, it can be toxic to your sites overall health if its not leveraged properly. So, before you let an AI tool write your next blog post or launch your...

As digital marketing continues to evolve, artificial intelligence has emerged as a powerful tool for website development and SEO optimization . In today’s video, we talk about how AI can streamline website creation, support SEO strategies, and save time on content generation. WordPress: The Foundation for SEO Success Before diving into AI applications, we need to establish a fundamental poin...

Maximizing Website ROI with Google Analytics 4: Essential Insights for Business Owners In today’s digital landscape, having a website is the first step but should not be the last step. Understanding how that website performs and contributes to your business goals is what separates successful online ventures from those that struggle to gain traction. At Vertical Web, we frequently encounter b...

Navigating the Future of SEO: Key Trends and Strategies for 2025 The digital marketing landscape is perpetually evolving, with SEO at the forefront of this transformation. As we approach 2025, it becomes imperative for marketers and business owners to understand and adapt to the latest SEO trends to maintain and enhance their online visibility. This post delves into the significant shifts expected...

Whether you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, or digital marketer, understanding the fundamentals of SEO can help you gain visibility, attract leads, and grow your business. What is SEO and Why is it Important? SEO, or Search Engine Optimization , is the practice of improving a website’s visibility on search engines like Google. The goal is to rank higher in search results, making it...

Keywords have been at the core of search engine optimization (SEO) since the early days of the Internet. Despite evolving algorithms, they remain crucial for ranking on Google. This guide explores the history, best practices, and strategies for using keywords effectively in 2024. The Evolution of Keywords in SEO Early Search Engines and Keyword Usage In the late 1990s, search engines like Lycos, A...

Unexpectedly, the SEO community was gifted a leak. Just as everyone was wringing their hands and lamenting SEO is dead (it’s not), here came a blueprint for SEOs. I have just begun soaking in all the information contained in this document. By way of background, Rand Fiskin, founder of MOZ, was contacted about the Google API being accidentally uploaded. But as I read through this, in many ways, it&...

SEO Hacks: Ways to win at SEO  SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a crucial aspect of digital marketing, and understanding how to navigate it can significantly impact the online visibility of your business. In this class we will explore the basics of SEO so that you can compete in this world and understand the do’s and don’ts and if you’re paying someone you can understand that they’re doing what...

Fall is upon us, which means the holidays are soon to follow. For business owners, this time of the year is filled with opportunity – opportunities to develop your brand and capture a new wave of customers in the process. Of course, the competition is fierce during the holidays, especially as we near Black Friday and Christmas. That means SMB owners and online retailers must be ready to opti...

Auditing Website Basics: The Rules Every Business Website Should Follow Developing a business website is difficult work. To be frank, it’s a job that most small business owners aren’t prepared to handle on their own. The job is only getting tougher, too, as Google is constantly raising the bar on what constitutes a high quality, trustworthy site. And every business owner should want a website that...

WordPress is one of the internet’s most powerful engines, as something like 40 percent of all sites run on WP. Millions of those sites are professional or e-commerce in nature, and from the get-go, they must be configured properly to succeed. That means integrating the right tools into WordPress during and following the initial WP install. If you’re partnered with a reputable web hosti...

How to Write a Better Blog Blogging, it’s not why most people get into business, but written communication remains an important part of customer acquisition. And online, that means writing high quality blogs, articles and landing page content to help send the signals to Google that will equal long term SEO success. With today’s tech-based, always-online economy, the value of good writing may not b...

If you’ve just launched a business website – or are about to launch one – your work is just beginning as the site’s owner. With millions of e-commerce and professional sites already online, it’s a real fight to get new websites noticed. In fact, it’s impossible to gain traction online without an effective SEO plan in place. That’s because search engines are picky when determining which...

For anyone who has been around the Internet Marketing Clinic for a while, knows we always try to stay ahead of where the road goes. AI tools have turned 2023 on its ear, and it is not even March. In this episode of the IMCH, we are taking an in-depth look at how to balance AI tools like ChatGPT and your website, content or SEO efforts. There is a lot  of very dangerous misguided implementations id...

Buckle up 2023 is going to be one for the ages. Every year brings a new set of challenges for the digital marketing industry, but 2023 may bring more upheaval than normal. Multiple content-related updates in late 2022 appear to be targeted at identifying and deranking pages with low quality (potentially AI) content. Google has also made recent updates to its Search Rater Quality Guidelines –...

Google has always prioritized content in its rankings, but in the second half of 2022 and into 2023, the search engine giant has gone all-in on content updates. In the past several months, Google has pushed over at least three significant content updates, and its latest includes major work to its search engine content guidelines. We’ll take a closer look at this latest update and what website owne...

Looking back at 2022 – a year of major Google updates Another year, another slate of algorithm updates from the world’s leading search engine. Google making changes to its ranking algorithm is nothing new – it’s always going on, actually – but 2022 saw a couple of impactful changes that website owners should be aware of. Ideally, you will have already made some of the necessary a...

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the primary components of digital marketing and is foundational to a successful website. Proper SEO gives your website the best possible chance at securing favorable search engine listings, and those top listings are valuable. In fact, the top 3 organic listings in Google gets an estimated 80 percent of all the clicks on a particular search engine results...

If you’re running an e-commerce website, then you’ve got competition. At last count, there were more than 20 million e-commerce sites in operation around the globe. Every one of those websites has the same goal – stand out, attract traffic and pick up conversions in the process. With millions of sites crowding the online picture, it’s never been more important to pursue best e-commerce pract...

When I teach class, I always advise using WordPress because it gives small business a way to level the playing field. At Vertical Web we do a lot of things, but client advocacy is one of the biggest. We talk about why using a platform like Wix or Squarespace in my opinion does not allow websites to have the best chance to rank in Google and that should always be a priority. https://www.youtube.com...

Each month I sit down to pick topics that are most relevant to the Digital Marketing landscape. Or, I am asked questions from clients that really can be a strong class topic. That is exactly what happened here. I had two different clients ask us to help them understand an SEO report. So out of that, this topic was born. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH9vglF2gAU&feature=youtu.be Google Analy...

Digital marketing is a huge field, encompassing several fields of study and changing all the time. And like with any technically-heavy field, digital marketing comes with its own lingo that’s used among industry members. Here we’ll start delving into those terms and what they mean to digital marketing professionals. That way, when someone starts spitting out SEO slang, you’ll know what they’re tal...

It seems like everyone is a web designer or an SEO expert these days. After all the years in this industry you learn to spot trends.  When the economy is poor, the web designers come out of the woodwork. Everyone suddenly knows how to build a site and knows SEO.  I am here to say that is an absolute fallacy. Reputable web designers are not part of the gig economy. And web design is not a side hust...