The most documented genocide in history continues as Palestinians are slaughtered everyday by Israeli forces who drop bomb after bomb on schools, refugee camps, homes, hospitals, and aid facilities with the full backing of the U.S. The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal and one of the highest-impact academic journals in the world, estimates that Israel has killed more than 186,000 Palestinians since October 2023. Its July 5th study found the actual death toll is higher than 40,000 because the UN’s toll doesn’t count the thousands of bodies buried under rubble, nor the deaths caused by Israel’s destruction of health facilities in Gaza.
So-called “evacuation orders” force surviving Palestinians into tiny concentration zones where deliberate starvation and disease spread are rampant. Others face torture and sexual abuse in Israeli prisons where systemic assaults by soldiers are well-doucmented, just as they were decades earlier.
On July 19, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is illegal, and its laws are “tantamount to the crime of apartheid.” However, that hasn’t stopped pro-Israel groups like AIPAC from pumping $100 million into U.S. elections to force out anti-genocide lawmakers and install their candidates.
As part of the genocide, Israel has also killed record numbers of aid workers and falsely accused the UN agency, UNRWA, of employing terrorists. Israel has never provided proof of its claims, and an international investigation on April 22 found no evidence of terrorism with UNRWA workers. Still, Israeli soldiers have killed at least 284 total aid workers, including 212 from UNRWA.
Please consider giving to this vital UN aid agency – especially as the U.S. funds Israel’s genocide, no matter how many “red lines” it crosses.
— SEO + Stories
About Blurred Bylines
Online search is mind-bogglingly popular. It’s estimated that Google receives more than 100,000 search queries per second. Just about every human with an internet connection uses search engines to look for products and services they want, learn about causes they care about, and read about topics they want to understand better.
SEO affords us the ability to share accessible, trusted information on virtually any topic and expand the visibility of the business or organization that provides that content on their website. For the businesses, nonprofits, and media outlets I work for, this work translates into more customers, clients, supporters, and readers who are looking exactly for what these organizations have to offer.
SEARCH ENGINES ARE NEVER GOING AWAY. WHAT CHANGES IS HOW WE OPTIMIZE FOR THEM.
The search engine landscape is changing rapidly. The introduction of AI into search with technologies like Google’s SGE, or Search Generative Experience, and Bing’s integration of AI into its search platform have created quite the disruption in SEO. These massive updates coupled with constant algorithm changes have made organic search a more volatile space for every website.
But despite all these fluctuations, some things remain constant. Whether your competition is across the street or across the country, SEO allows nearly any business or group to compete in organic search results, grow its audience among a community of interested users, and convert those people into new customers or supporters.
Organic search will never disappear. People will always be searching for what they want and need on the internet. And staying on top of shifting SEO trends is how we continue to meet the needs of that online audience.
2 Pieces to BB
Search Engines + Stories
There are essentially two parts to Blurred Bylines: SEO services I perform for clients, and long-form stories I write and optimize to rank in search engines like Google.
SEO
White-hat search engine optimization (SEO) services for businesses, nonprofits, digital publications, and freelancers to grow their organizations online.
STORIES
Articles about marginalized communities, forgotten figures in U.S. history, survivors of violent crime who rebuilt their lives, and individuals who fight systemic oppression.
— Real SEO Results
SEO Case Studies
Curious how SEO could grow your website’s reach? Check out SEO case studies from current and past clients who hail from diverse backgrounds, industries, business types, and regions of the U.S. These case studies explore the individual issues their websites faced, strategies I utilized to reverse negative trends in traffic and rankings, and the real-life organic results they gained from that work.
Search
— Grow Through Google Search
SEO Services
When done right, SEO builds a foundation of long-term visibility, reliable traffic, and predictable conversion rates for websites. Search engine optimization is a blend of content strategy and technical fixes that work together to produce results that support an organization’s overarching business goals.
With 8 years of experience of performing SEO for ecommerce and service-based companies, such as law firms, national franchise organizations, dental groups, home improvement companies, and more, I know what it takes to perform at a consistently high level in search – and I’ve crafted my services to address those KPI’s and support business growth. Feel free to take a look at those results yourself on the SEO Case Studies page.
I have the pleasure of working with Shari, and it has been an incredibly informative experience. Her expertise in SEO has given me a deep understanding of how it works and its impact on my business. She operates with a client-first mentality, and works with me to ensure that the SEO results she achieves are truly aligned with my goals.
Evi Kantor
I absolutely love working with Shari. We’ve worked together on several brand accounts for a few years now and she’s always on-time with her deliverables, highly communicative and provides high-quality SEO work that yields positive results. This year, she helped us refresh dozens of blogs for a well-known dog food company that increased traffic by nearly 450% year over year.
Fable McDonald
SEO Values
Intentional Work, Not Just Checking a Box
Whether it’s to strengthen an ongoing strategy, target a new audience, or explore different keyword opportunities, every bit of work is done to support your specific business goals.
More Authenticity, Less Marketing Jargon
Great work translates to great results. In SEO, there are no shortcuts or effective ways of tricking Google. It isn’t marketing mumbo jumbo – it’s just hard work, done consistently over time.
Transparency with Honest Results
When you hire me for SEO services, you’ll know everything I worked on that month and can see that work yourself. Plus, if I find that something’s not working, I’ll let you know. And we’ll adjust our strategy.
Make the Internet a More Useful Place
A keyword-stuffed blog that was only written to rank in SERPs is useless to humans and bad for business. My SEO strategies seek to provide real value to clients through useful, helpful content that also ranks well.
— Long-Form Articles
Stories at BB
I started Blurred Bylines in 2016 because I needed a place to call my own where I could write about the issues I cared about and share that information with readers. That remains true today, and I use SEO to grow my monthly readership to numbers I would be unable to achieve without it.
The stories I tend to write focus on the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and survivors of violent crime with intersectional angles of social justice, personal identity, and American history. One of the main goals I have for these pieces is to outrank a steady drip of spammy, low-quality content that some websites produce on these topics. Because for all of the trustworthy online sources out there, plenty others are not – and they can rank in SERPs too.
There are no 3rd-party ads or paywalls at Blurred Bylines. A credit card is not needed to access these stories. I just want well-sourced, accurate information to be accessible to those who want to learn more, no strings attached.
About
— Owner of Blurred Bylines
About Shari Rose
Before entering the SEO industry, I was a newspaper copy editor. Those years I spent in journalism showed me how powerful unrestricted, freely available information can be. It can spur change through shifting attitudes and policies, as well as highlight ongoing issues that went previously unreported.
Search engines are often used to surface high-quality, accurate, and trusted information. Of course, the inverse is also true. Like social media, search engines can become misinformation machines that bad-faith actors use to push fear-based narratives, debunked science, and conspiracy theories.
It’s undoubtedly an ongoing effort, but I believe that SEO can be a force for good. That’s why there is no third-party ad serving or paywall restriction allowed on Blurred Bylines. As the internet has become more corporate, it’s also become less accessible to the average user. I hope this site is a little oasis from the revenue-first, digital environment that we experience in most other places on the internet.
Plus, there is no AI-generated writing here. Everything you see on Blurred Bylines is written by a real person, never a robot.
Artwork: Norman Duenas
— REQUEST A QUOTE
Contact Shari
Want to inquire about SEO services for your website or send me a story idea for an article on Blurred Bylines? Reach out with this form and I’ll get back to you.