SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

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• What Small Business Owners Should Know About Google Glass

  Small Business Search Marketing

  Matt McGee

  24 May 2013 | 10:23 am

  The main thing to know: Glass is a pretty powerful device when it comes to finding local businesses. The next-main thing: You’re in great shape if you rank No. 1 in a Google local listings 3-pack or 7-pack. Google Glass is new, still very much a beta (or alpha) product, and is likely to develop and change over time. But if you’re a local business owner, and you want to get a glimpse of how local search works now, I just wrote an in-depth article on Search Engine Land: Google Glass Diary, Part 4: Local Search & Navigation And the first three articles in the series are here:…

• A Tour of the New Google Maps [15 Screenshots]

  Small Business Search Marketing

  Matt McGee

  19 May 2013 | 10:50 am

  Google announced an overhaul to Google Maps at last week’s Google I/O conference and, judging from what I saw on screen during the keynote, it looked very spiffy. It also looked like a pretty substantial change from the existing Google Maps, so I’ve been anxious to find time to sit down and give it a test drive. That’s what I’m doing in this post: Kicking the tires and making some notes on what it looks like, what it does, and what it might mean to small businesses. The first important thing to emphasize is that this is an overhaul strictly of maps.google.com; it…

• The Clix Marketing Blog’s Weekly #PPC New and Views: May 24th, 2013

  The Clix Marketing Blog

  Michelle Morehouse

  24 May 2013 | 9:07 am

  Welcome to this week’s edition of Clix Marketing’s PPC New and Views! I hope you all had a fantastic week and are ready for the holiday weekend! There were tons of great articles and announcements in the ppc industry this week. It was hard to pick just a few to recap the week, but alas it had to be done. Here are the top posts from this past week. Get Found First This was the first post I read on Monday, and although it’s not a new release or a post talking about an new and shiny technique for managing your ads, I think it’s one of the most important of the week. Stu…

• Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Keywords

  Conversation Marketing from Portent, Inc: Internet Marketing with a Twist of Lemon

  Timothy Johnson

  24 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  In charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. We’re in week three of our six-part blog series in which Portent PPC StrategistsChad KearnsandTim Johnson lay down the knowledge on best practices for achieving PPC success. Follow along to pick up tips on how to build your first PPC account like a PPC superstar. Post #1: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Account Structure Post #2: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Understanding your Campaign Settings If the account structure is the backbone of…

• How to Recover from Penguin 2.0

  Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

  23 May 2013 | 9:42 am

  by Jayson DeMers Penguin 2.0 has just rolled out. Brace for impact. For the approximate 2.3% regular US-English queries that it affects, many SEOs have been waiting to see if the traffic to their website will be negatively affected. While many black-hat practitioners that were affected by Penguin 1.0 can only hope their rankings don't plunge further into the depths of obscurity, the rest of us are crossing our fingers and hoping that we made it through relatively unscathed. However, if your website was affected by Penguin 2.0, there are a few things you can do to ensure that your website gets…

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  ShoeMoney Internet Marketing Blog

• Hot New Internet Products May 20th – May 24th. (WordPress Week)

  Jeremy Schoemaker

  25 May 2013 | 5:00 am

  Here is a list of the newest internet marketing tools. All items listed are certified with volume sold and refund rate. Refund rate is a great indication of customers satisfied with the product. If one of these products interest you click the find out more information to go to their sales page which will be a much more detailed page about the product. All products come with at least a 30 day refund rate.  PremoPress – WPAutoMall Theme - Wordpress theme for your local Car Dealer clients, easily create websites for car dealers in just a few clicks with this HTML 5 powered fully…

• Free Shirt Friday – Wish.co.uk

  Jeremy Schoemaker

  24 May 2013 | 5:00 am

  This FSF comes from Wish.co.uk all the way across the pond in England. This site is basically a one stop shop for a ton of fun services in the UK area. These services include tours of stadiums, indoor sky diving, and even learn how to drive a tank. Pretty cool stuff.  If you would like to see your website or company featured on Free Shirt Friday click here. Looking for an SEO service that won’t get you banned?

• Free Money From Chitika (Act Fast)

  Jeremy Schoemaker

  23 May 2013 | 8:20 am

  Since Chitika has pretty much become the publishing and advertising platfom for Yahoo! (my words not theirs) I have been hitting them up to see if they can do something special for ShoeMoney users. I know a lot of people are new to the space and need a little push to get started.  Sometimes that push can lead to some magical things .  That was my exact case.  That famous Adsense check for 130k on the left.  That came about because of a phone call I got from Google suggesting I place their ad on my site . So here is what I got for you: Free Money: For each person who signs up in the next…

• Mike Jeffries Is a Jerk & Other Things That Don’t Matter

  Shanelle Mullin

  22 May 2013 | 5:00 am

  In case you haven’t heard, Mike Jeffries is a jerk. A big one. Robin Lewis was recently quoted claiming Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, “doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people. He doesn’t want his core customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they’re one of the ‘cool kids’.” So, Jeffries basically wants to hang a sign in front of every Abercrombie & Fitch store that reads: “No Fat Chicks”. Twitter is still aflutter with girls and guys…

• ShoeMoney Book Now Available @ Barnes & Nobles and Public Libraries

  Jeremy Schoemaker

  21 May 2013 | 6:11 am

  Not that anyone shops at Barnes and Nobles anymore but I just saw on my create space account that they have picked up a large amount of inventory to stock at select locations around the country. This is really interesting news cause 2 months ago when we hit the 30,000  copies sold mark I was approached by a publisher who told me the only way to get into traditional book stores was to invest $40,000.00 for renting the “shelf space”.  He said that these traditional book stores take zero risk now days unless they know they can make money on a book. So lol…  Not sure if they…

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  Marketing Pilgrim - Internet News and Opinion

• Infographic Shows People Are Two-Timing on Their TV Sets

  Cynthia Boris

  24 May 2013 | 2:29 pm

  Memorial Day means the start of the summer blockbuster movie season. This weekend, we’ll all be getting Fast and Furious again along with another Hangover. Next month, Superman returns to the big screen and in July the Lone Ranger rides again. But if you prefer not to fight the crowds, you can also stay home and watch some of the best movies (or the worst if that’s your thing) on your PC or mobile device. In honor of this holiday weekend, here’s a look at how men and women stream from M-Go. What a terrible blow for TV sets all over America. They probably have no idea how…

• What and When Do Social Moms Share

  Cynthia Boris

  24 May 2013 | 1:28 pm

  One of the great truths of social media is that moms like to share and they’re powerful influencers when they get behind (or are annoyed by) a brand. We know it’s true but we keep studying it to make sure the world hasn’t slipped sideways. The latest fact checkers are ShareThis and Digitas. They surveyed 200,000 moms (that’s a nice sampling, don’t you think?) to find out how they interact with social. The packed their results into a slide show called “Wired for Sharing” and now I’d like to share a couple of key slides. Think moms are all about…

• Jon Stewart on Apple Tax ‘Hearing’

  Frank Reed

  24 May 2013 | 5:00 am

  As Jon Stewart starts to get much less partisan in his skewering of the day’s news he is getting funnier than ever. Here is his take on the Apple tax ‘issue’ in which the company is using legitimate tax loopholes to pay nothing on $44 billion in income. (NOTE: If video window does not show completely at first refresh browser and ‘Poof!’ there it is) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Tax Men – Apple www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Indecision Political Humor The Daily Show on Facebook

• Google Reportedly Facing FTC Probe on Display Advertising Tactics

  Frank Reed

  24 May 2013 | 4:35 am

  Google looks like it will probably be hiring yet again in their legal department. Well, there is no announcement to that effect but considering the number of countries stepping up to the plate to take a swing at the company for search and display tactics they are probably going to need the help. Bloomberg is reporting that the FTC is looking into Google’s way of promoting its DoubleClick platform vs the other display ad platform options that exist. Once again there seems to be this idea that Google is a public utility even though it is a private company but anyway. From Bloomberg we get…

• Facebook Users Watched 740 Million Videos in April. . And Only Came in Second

  Cynthia Boris

  23 May 2013 | 3:36 pm

  If you think 740 million video views sounds like a lot, prepare yourself for a shock. According to the latest comScore Video Metrix’s report, YouTube visitors (in combination with other Google properties) watched 13 billion videos in April. Yes, billion with a ‘b’. What’s really fascinating is the rate of the climb. Look at these charts for April and February. In three months, the list, particularly in number of videos viewed is incredible. In February, Facebook had just crossed the half a million mark. Now, they’re almost at 750 million. The difference in the…

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  The Clix Marketing Blog

• The Clix Marketing Blog’s Weekly #PPC New and Views: May 24th, 2013

  Michelle Morehouse

  24 May 2013 | 9:07 am

  Welcome to this week’s edition of Clix Marketing’s PPC New and Views! I hope you all had a fantastic week and are ready for the holiday weekend! There were tons of great articles and announcements in the ppc industry this week. It was hard to pick just a few to recap the week, but alas it had to be done. Here are the top posts from this past week. Get Found First This was the first post I read on Monday, and although it’s not a new release or a post talking about an new and shiny technique for managing your ads, I think it’s one of the most important of the week. Stu…

• AdWords Editor Releases 10.1.0: What’s There and What’s Not

  Michelle Morehouse

  24 May 2013 | 7:16 am

  Yesterday (May 23rd) marked the release of the newest version of everyone favorite offline campaign management tool, AdWords Editor. As we would expect, many of the new features are focused on upgrading to and managing enhanced campaigns, but there are a couple new reporting features as well. Here’s a quick rundown of what was added. Enhanced Campaigns The first upgrade is basically an offline version of the new Upgrade Center found in the AdWords interface. This new feature will allow you to upgrade to enhanced campaigns using either a CSV import or the add/update multiple campaigns…

• Long Term PPC Keyword Expansion: Moving Beyond the Obvious

  John Lee

  22 May 2013 | 12:38 pm

  If you are even just an average PPC manager, you know basic keyword research: brainstorm on some root terms, plug them into a keyword tool and then build out a full keyword list. Every one of us has to start here, but what happens when you need to expand your search campaigns? What happens when you hit the proverbial wall with keyword tools and brainstorming? This is when it becomes important to develop a long term keyword expansion plan that will help you to pull keyword ideas from numerous resources. There are some obvious starting points. As a refresher, I’ll cover those obvious…

• The Clix Marketing Blog’s Weekly #PPC News and Views for May 17th, 2013

  Michelle Morehouse

  17 May 2013 | 7:38 am

  Welcome to the Clix Marketing Weekly News and Views in the PPC industry. We’ve got a great list of posts from around the industry this week including PPC SWOT Analysis, quality scores, and enhanced campaigns. So without further ado, let’s get started! Get Found First This week Paul Hartley at Get Found First posted part 3 of his 5 part series entitled: “5 Analysis Tools: A Conceptual Look at PPC.” This week’s topic was S.W.O.T. Analysis of Your PPC Advertising Strategy. In the article, Paul breaks down each piece of S.W.O.T. (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities,…

• SERPs – What PPC Experts See That You Don’t

  Robert Brady

  17 May 2013 | 6:30 am

  Lately, I’ve been meeting a lot of new people and inevitably I’m asked what I do for work. This is a pretty common dialogue: Me: I’m an internet marketer (try to keep it easy and hope they just roll with it, but usually you get the follow-up question) Them: What exactly do you do? Build websites? Me: I manage paid search advertising for companies. Them: [blank stare] Me: You know those ads you see on the side of search results or on Facebook? I write those. Them: Oh, you’re that guy (obvious annoyance in voice) Me: I only write the good ones . Them: [laugh a little,…

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  Small Business Search Marketing

• What Small Business Owners Should Know About Google Glass

  Matt McGee

  24 May 2013 | 10:23 am

  The main thing to know: Glass is a pretty powerful device when it comes to finding local businesses. The next-main thing: You’re in great shape if you rank No. 1 in a Google local listings 3-pack or 7-pack. Google Glass is new, still very much a beta (or alpha) product, and is likely to develop and change over time. But if you’re a local business owner, and you want to get a glimpse of how local search works now, I just wrote an in-depth article on Search Engine Land: Google Glass Diary, Part 4: Local Search & Navigation And the first three articles in the series are here:…

• How Often Should I Blog?

  Matt McGee

  21 May 2013 | 8:11 am

  The tweetable answer to the “How often should I blog?” question is this: Blog as often as possible, as long as you’re writing content that offers value to readers. But obviously there’s more nuance involved in answering this question, so let’s dive a little deeper into the benefits of regular blogging. My Usual Advice: Two Posts per Week When I began working with Dr. Cynthia Bailey way back in 2008/09, I encouraged her to aim for at least two posts per week. With the exception of a few vacation breaks, she’s done that and her skin care blog is now driving…

• A Tour of the New Google Maps [15 Screenshots]

  Matt McGee

  19 May 2013 | 10:50 am

  Google announced an overhaul to Google Maps at last week’s Google I/O conference and, judging from what I saw on screen during the keynote, it looked very spiffy. It also looked like a pretty substantial change from the existing Google Maps, so I’ve been anxious to find time to sit down and give it a test drive. That’s what I’m doing in this post: Kicking the tires and making some notes on what it looks like, what it does, and what it might mean to small businesses. The first important thing to emphasize is that this is an overhaul strictly of maps.google.com; it…

• Google Finally Starts to Kill Zagat Scores

  Matt McGee

  17 May 2013 | 8:27 am

  I wish you could’ve seen my face on Wednesday during the keynote at Google I/O. My eyes lit up big and bold and I’m sure my mouth opened wide while I wondered, “Did I just really see and hear them kill Zagat scores?” Indeed, I did. Google even announced it on their blog, too. This, you may know, is something I’ve been advocating for time and time again, so it was nice to see that Google finally realized the error of a 30-point rating scale. That said, Zagat scores aren’t completely dead. In the new Google Maps, some business listings will continue to…

• Call Tracking: The Risks & Advice from Professor Maps

  Matt McGee

  14 May 2013 | 9:26 am

  Call tracking is a topic that comes up at every Local U workshop that we put on and, in most cases, it’s because call tracking has caused all kinds of problems for the local business that’s doing it. Professor Maps, AKA Mike Blumenthal, has written an easy-to-understand overview of the risks involved in call tracking, along with his advice for when and where it might be okay to do it and not hurt your local search visibility. He covers the use of call tracking phone numbers in four areas: offline (“you would be better off tracking incoming calls manually”) Google+…

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  Yoast

• How to cloak your affiliate links

  Joost de Valk

  21 May 2013 | 1:43 pm

  We regularly review sites that monetize, in part, with affiliate links. I’ve always said and will continue to say that affiliate links should be redirected through a redirect script, but when we tried to help a client by linking to a proper explanation and example script, we couldn’t find one. So, in true Yoast style, I wrote a script and decided to write this article that outlines exactly how and why to use it. Why should I cloak my affiliate links? If you search online for it, there are tons of reasons for people to redirect their affiliate links. The “historical”…

• WordPress SEO Community & Roadmap

  Joost de Valk

  14 May 2013 | 3:58 am

  Our WordPress SEO plugin has been getting more and more downloads, bringing it to the top of the most downloaded plugin chart on WordPress.org fairly regularly. With that comes more interest from other developers as well, which is something we absolutely love, but is kind of impossible to manage properly on WordPress.org. Which is why we’ve now decided to fully move to Github. New developer Recently there were some unfortunate events in the US which caused BlueGlass, a company lots of my friends worked at, to go bust. As with all negatives, there was a good thing that came out of this,…

• Why we moved to all email support

  Joost de Valk

  17 Apr 2013 | 1:18 pm

  When we started doing premium WordPress plugins, we also added a support forum to yoast.com. Many people liked this but I was, to be honest, skeptic. My experience with the WordPress.org forums are … Poor, at best. I just don’t think forums work very well, in large part because there is an ever continuing tendency for people to comment on someone else’s thread, saying they have the same issue, when in fact the two are entirely unrelated. We gave it our best shot though, we used bbPress, combined it with several of Pippin’s fantastic plugins and used the EDD Product…

• The future of SEO plugins for WordPress

  Joost de Valk

  8 Apr 2013 | 1:18 am

  I find myself becoming more and more defensive of WordPress SEO plugins, my own in particular. When people make jokes about them I tend to get angry, which is perhaps a stupid reaction, but it made me think: why would people make jokes about them, are they that stupid? What does the future hold for those plugins and what do they really do? So I went and installed and played with a ton of SEO plugins. My conclusion: hardly any of the new ones are original or truly add value, but they all promise heaven. The more well known free SEO plugins, including my own, have mostly overlapping feature…

• Why Google won’t display the right page title

  Joost de Valk

  26 Mar 2013 | 7:04 am

  Lately we’ve been inundated, literally, with support requests for WordPress SEO and its premium add-ons, all asking one “simple” thing: why isn’t Google picking up my page title? People who changed their page title and see that the search results still show their old title are bound to think Google didn’t “get” the new title yet and of course they blame their SEO plugin (sigh). Well, this time, it’s not our fault… Google does all sorts of things to your title. It sometimes replaces it with parts of your URL, but it’s also known to…

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  Conversation Marketing from Portent, Inc: Internet Marketing with a Twist of Lemon

• Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Keywords

  Timothy Johnson

  24 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  In charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. We’re in week three of our six-part blog series in which Portent PPC StrategistsChad KearnsandTim Johnson lay down the knowledge on best practices for achieving PPC success. Follow along to pick up tips on how to build your first PPC account like a PPC superstar. Post #1: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Account Structure Post #2: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Understanding your Campaign Settings If the account structure is the backbone of…

• Meet the PPC Team (Star Trek: TNG Style)

  Ryan Moothart

  23 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  Here at Portent, we have many Internet marketing teams: SEO, content, and design, just to name a few. But the best team, objectively speaking*, is the PPC team. *This is completely subjective as I am a member of the PPC team.  That does not mean what I say is not the truth. We are a special bunch that takes great pride in our work as individuals and as a team.  We geek out on data, we go beyond paid search management and develop strategies to ensure our clients kick everyone else’s ass, and we can pass the AdWords certification tests in our sleep.  But that’s not all. We also have a…

• How Google Ruined Marketing

  Ian Lurie

  21 May 2013 | 4:31 pm

  Marketing wasn’t supposed to be a zero-sum game. Your competitor bought a TV commercial, you bought a TV commercial. They bought radio time, you bought radio time. Even if they bought every available second of radio time on one station, you could buy time on another, or go to a completely different medium. That promoted two good things: Creativity in advertising. Creativity entertains consumers and forces brands to take a hard look at themselves every few months. This inspires a kind of corporate self-awareness that keeps the best consumer and business brands sharp. Great products.

• Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Understand your Campaign Settings

  Chad Kearns

  17 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  In charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. Over the course of the next six weeks, Portent PPC Strategists Chad Kearns and Tim Johnson will be laying down the knowledge in a six-part blog series detailing best practices for setting yourself up for PPC success. Follow along to pick up tips on how to build your first PPC account like a PPC superstar. Post #1: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Account Structure During campaign creation, AdWords provides a number of settings to tailor a campaign to…

• Manage Stuff, Lead People: How to Turn Workers into Leaders

  Steve Gahler

  16 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  We’ve all seen it happen. An employee is doing killer work, initiating great ideas, and displaying a willingness to take on larger projects. The employee is quickly promoted to a manager position. But while this top employee has excelled at the tactical parts of the job, he or she has never managed a team before. Letting these employees just sink or swim will be chaos – for you, the new manager, and for his or her team. For growing companies like Portent, it’s important to guide even the smartest, hardest working employees as they transition into management roles. As president, my role…

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  SiteFoxSiteFox

• 5 Article Templates That Will Turn Your Blog Into A Customer Magnet

  Samir Balwani

  21 May 2013 | 8:00 am

  Having a business blog is a great way to drive new customers and build exposure for your company. But what do you write about? What kind of content will drive results? Just writing a blog to write a blog isn’t enough; to truly be successful, you have to think strategically about topics that will lead to converting visitors into customers. With that in mind, here are 5 thought starters for your next blog post. 1: Explore off-label uses for your product One great way to highlight your product without overtly selling your product is by showing off-label uses. How are people using your product…

• Introducing the SiteFox Developer’s Program

  Samir Balwani

  21 Apr 2013 | 8:19 am

  Do you use WordPress to create websites for small business owners? Are you a WordPress developer that manages multiple websites? If you are, then our new developer’s program is for you. We’ve just introduced a number of features to help you more easily manage your client’s websites and even offer them added value. Members of the SiteFox Developer program receive a discounted rate on all business accounts and priority support for their clients. Use SiteFox to give your clients: Managed and secure WordPress hosting WordPress tutorials for getting started with their website In-depth…

• Five Reasons Why People Hate Your Business Website

  Samir Balwani

  6 Mar 2013 | 6:00 am

  Small business websites have a reputation of generally being bad. It’s not our fault, web trends keep changing and we’re too busy growing our business to worry about our website. The truth is that as your website becomes more and more important (people look for you online before searching anywhere else), making sure you are giving users a positive experience becomes more important too. Creating a positive experience can be simple; most times the simpler the better, small businesses tend to get in trouble when they try to make things overly elaborate. Here are five things you want to make…

• 3 Ways to Integrate Social Media into Your Website

  Samir Balwani

  26 Feb 2013 | 6:00 am

  Your social media presence should only be part of your online marketing strategy. If you want to get the most out of your online presence, it’s important to integrate your social media profiles with your social media hub (your website). Thankfully, tying everything together is easier now than ever before. Almost all the major social media websites have created simple plug and play widgets for bringing everything together. Link to Your Social Media Profiles The first place to start is to ensure that you’ve made it simple for website visitors to find your social media profiles. There are…

• Your Guide to Creating a Successful Small Business Website

  Samir Balwani

  21 Feb 2013 | 7:00 am

  Successful small business owners know that focusing on tasks that grow the bottom line are the most important. This mentality is the reason why, many times, business owners forgo creating and managing a website – a major missed opportunity. Your website, when well optimized, can act as a new and effective marketing channel. Use your website to act as your online sales person; introducing your business to new customers and converting them into customers. Table of Contents Benefits of a Business Website Creating Your Website Optimizing Your Website Capturing and Nurturing Leads Common…

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  search engine marketing - Google News

• Why Offline Businesses Need Online Marketing - Search Engine Journal

  25 May 2013 | 7:06 am

  Search Engine JournalWhy Offline Businesses Need Online MarketingSearch Engine JournalDo not miss out on sales and customers by ignoring or avoiding online marketing. One of the key principles of business is to be where your target audience is looking for you. A growing number of consumers are searching online before making a purchase

• Tips for Great Content Marketing for Local Search Success - DigitalJournal.com (press release)

  24 May 2013 | 9:24 pm

  Business 2 CommunityTips for Great Content Marketing for Local Search SuccessDigitalJournal.com (press release)My Local Leads, a Maine marketing firm specializing in local search marketing, provides a wide variety of services to clients around the US including search engine optimization, content creation, social media marketing, and more. There is a lot of SEO Basics - Search Engine Optimization Series Part 2Business 2 CommunityThe Inconvenient Truth About SEOSearch Engine JournalImportance of Keywords in Content Writing, SEO Company London's ViewNewswire (press release)PR Web (press…

• ROI Internet Services Offers Top Quality, ROI Sensitive, Search Engine ... - SBWire (press release)

  23 May 2013 | 8:17 am

  ROI Internet Services Offers Top Quality, ROI Sensitive, Search Engine SBWire (press release)ROI (Return of Internet), an internet marketing firm consisting of experts in the fields of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay per Click Management (PPC), and Website Design and Development, offers top quality, ROI sensitive, Search Engine Marketing

• The Myth of Content Marketing, the New SEO & Penguin 2.0 - Search Engine Watch

  23 May 2013 | 6:42 am

  San Francisco Chronicle (press release)The Myth of Content Marketing, the New SEO & Penguin 2.0Search Engine Watch"What Should Lead Your Online Marketing Strategy: SEO or Content". "Why Content Marketing is the New SEO". "Is Google's love affair with content marketing usurping SEO?" "Content Marketing is the New SEO ". These are actual titles from article in the Search Engine Optimisation By A+ SEO Announces New ServiceSan Francisco Chronicle (press release)3 Questions to Ask Your Local Search Optimization SpecialistClickZTop SEO Tools for Small…

• Marketing Automation & Search – 3 Strategies for Mutual Success - Search Engine Watch

  22 May 2013 | 5:43 am

  Marketing Automation & Search – 3 Strategies for Mutual SuccessSearch Engine WatchOne of the key points that has caught my attention is the high level of synchronicity that exists between marketing automation platform strategies and my experience with "search" and "top of the funnel" marketing. By identifying and exploring these SEO Company, Avital Web, Offers Comprehensive Web Design and MarketWatch (press release)all 7 news articles »

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  Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing

• How to Recover from Penguin 2.0

  23 May 2013 | 9:42 am

  by Jayson DeMers Penguin 2.0 has just rolled out. Brace for impact. For the approximate 2.3% regular US-English queries that it affects, many SEOs have been waiting to see if the traffic to their website will be negatively affected. While many black-hat practitioners that were affected by Penguin 1.0 can only hope their rankings don't plunge further into the depths of obscurity, the rest of us are crossing our fingers and hoping that we made it through relatively unscathed. However, if your website was affected by Penguin 2.0, there are a few things you can do to ensure that your website gets…

• 4 Untapped Link Building Opportunities for Startups

  21 May 2013 | 9:40 am

  by Brian Dean If you're like most start ups, link building is at the bottom of your overflowing to-do list. Fortunately, you don't need a full-time hire or a pricey SEO firm to bring your site the search engine traffic it needs to thrive. In fact, you only need to set aside a few hours of work per month to take advantage of these these quick and dirty link building opportunities. 1. Turn Brand Mentions Into Links You'd be surprised how often bloggers and media sites mention your site without actually linking to your website. While a mention can help get your name out there, you'll land…

• Local SEO - "Rank Factors: Review Sites"

  20 May 2013 | 2:35 pm

  by Chris Warden Local Search Ranking Factors Review Sites This is an area that is often overlooked by small business owners, but its importance can't be understated. One of the main ranking factors for local listings is reviews, and in order to achieve high rankings you not only have to be on these sites, you have to monitor your reputation there. Bad reviews sink sites. The difference between a "3" star review on Yelp and a "3.5" star review is a 63-percent increase in business. That's just half of a point! Want to increase your business by 60-percent or more with no additional work? Get and…

• SEO Principles From Volkswagen: How They Made It Cool Again

  16 May 2013 | 11:38 am

  by Jayson DeMers Volkswagen has embarked on a new bid to capture an even larger piece of the pie in the American auto marketplace, and Internet marketing techniques are playing a big role in that campaign. Let's face it, if your company was founded by Hitler, you start off with a public relations deficit that to most of us might seem insurmountable. But Volkswagen (German, "people's car") did a spectacular job of erasing that deficit with the Beetle in the 50s and 60s. The company dealt with a threatened slump in the 70s with new models such as the Passat, the Golf, and the Jetta.

• Local SEO - "Rank Factors: Places Listing and Social Media"

  15 May 2013 | 2:13 pm

  by Chris Warden Local Search Ranking Factors Google Places Listing One of the main ranking factors in local search is an optimized listing using some of Google's own properties, most notably Google Places Fill out the standard information first, such as: Business nameAddressPhone numberHours of operationContact emailWebsite address Fill out all the information required. An incomplete profile certainly isn't doing you any favors. Your goal, above all else, is to earn trust from Google so that they rank your site favorably in their local listings. When selecting your business name, don't use…

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  Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

• SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 24, 2013

  Barry Schwartz

  24 May 2013 | 12:59 pm

  Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Google Glass Diary, Part 4: Local Search & Navigation Remember that first Google Glass video? It was published a little more than a year ago and gave the... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

• Google Glass Diary, Part 4: Local Search & Navigation

  Matt McGee

  24 May 2013 | 9:32 am

  Remember that first Google Glass video? It was published a little more than a year ago and gave the world its first glimpse at what Google had in mind for Glass. Even though Google described it as “an early concept video,” you can clearly see that local search and navigation was a key... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

• Search In Pics: Google Robots With Lightsaber‎s, Bloomberg Cutting Google Cake & The Simpsons Street View

  Barry Schwartz

  24 May 2013 | 9:03 am

  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the Web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Android Bathroom Signs: Source: Google+ Bike To Work Day At Google Germany:... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

• Google Voice Search Coming To iOS, Chrome For Android Gets An Update

  Ginny Marvin

  24 May 2013 | 7:57 am

  Google released a couple of new UI features with the latest Chrome update for Android yesterday and announced that voice search will be coming to Chrome for iOS “soon”. Android Updates With the Android update, the long search URL box is gone and search queries in Chrome display in the... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

• 5 Excel Skills Every Marketer Should Know

  Annie Cushing

  24 May 2013 | 6:30 am

  One question I get asked a lot is this: what Excel skills are most important for marketers to learn? I have whittled that interminable list down to five skills that I believe are absolutely essential for marketers to know, presented below in order of importance. Table Formatting I believe that... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

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  Search Engine Journal

• Why Offline Businesses Need Online Marketing by @BrandMeAU

  Eric Thomas

  25 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  You have a local based brick and mortar business, so no reason to invest in online marketing, right? Location based businesses couldn’t be more wrong. Do not miss out on sales and customers by ignoring or avoiding online marketing.  One of the key principles of business is to be where your target audience is looking [...]Author informationEric ThomasEric Thomas is blogger and Brand Manager for Brandme.com.au, a promotional gifts supplier in Australia. He enjoys sharing business and marketing tips.TwitterFacebookThe post Why Offline Businesses Need Online Marketing by @BrandMeAU appeared…

• The Inconvenient Truth About SEO

  Krystian Włodarczyk

  24 May 2013 | 1:00 pm

  Matt Cutts published a video with a very interesting topic recently. He discussed the question, if a legitimate and customer appreciated business can compete in gaining high rankings in the search engines with companies that specialize in traffic acquisition. Can they? As stated in the video, the Internet leveled the chances of big and small [...]Author informationKrystian WłodarczykKrystian is an Internet Marketing Manager at Positionly. He is also a contributor to the Positionly Blog. Positionly is user-friendly SEO software designed to track and analyze search engine rankings.The post…

• This Week in Search: Penguin 2.0 Video Update by @johnrampton

  John Rampton

  24 May 2013 | 10:20 am

  This week in search we talk about everything to deal with Penguin 2.0.  We cover everything you need to know to keep you and your site up to date.  If you missed, last week we talked about Bing Search. Penguin 2.0, here is everything you need to know.  Our goal with these videos is to help our [...]Author informationJohn RamptonManaging Editor John Rampton is an entrepreneur, full-time computer nerd, PPC guru at Maple North and founder at PPC.org.TwitterFacebookGoogle+LinkedInThe post This Week in Search: Penguin 2.0 Video Update by @johnrampton appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

• The Best Free SEO Tools for Competitive Intelligence by @MarcPurtell

  Marc Purtell

  24 May 2013 | 6:00 am

  Knowing what your competitors are doing and how they perform is key to developing a strategy to surpass them in organic search. By doing a bit of digging, one can uncover a great deal of learning from competitors who have already tested different elements of their SEO campaigns. In previous posts in this series, I [...]Author informationMarc PurtellHead of SEO at MediaWhizMarc Purtell is director of SEO at performance marketing agency Media Whiz and its SEO ingredient service, TLA. He can be reached at mpurtell@mediawhiz.com.TwitterGoogle+The post The Best Free SEO Tools for Competitive…

• 5 Things You Need to Know About AdWords’ New Keyword Planner by @LarryKim

  Larry Kim

  23 May 2013 | 1:00 pm

  Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool has been the standard for AdWords keyword research for over a decade, but there’s a new sheriff in town: the AdWords Keyword Planner. This new keyword tool combines the functionality of the existing Google Keyword Tool as well as AdWords Traffic Estimator into a single integrated workflow to help advertisers find [...]Author informationLarry KimLarry Kim is the Founder/CTO of WordStream, a provider of PPC Management Tools.Google+The post 5 Things You Need to Know About AdWords’ New Keyword Planner by @LarryKim appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

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  Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips

• The Internship: A Fun Movie, But Also A Beautiful Google Commercial

  Danny Sullivan

  25 May 2013 | 2:05 pm

  The Internship is great, a funny film well-worth seeing by anyone who likes underdog stories. But one thing that wasn’t an underdog was Google itself. It won throughout the movie. I got to view the film during a press screening on Thursday. It’s easy to imagine that many will come away... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

• Microsoft, Google To Build New Windows Phone YouTube App Together

  Matt McGee

  24 May 2013 | 1:44 pm

  Microsoft and Google appear to have buried the hatchet over the YouTube app that’s been available for Windows Phones, and say they’re “working together” to get a new app out “in the coming weeks.” The two companies issued a statement today, two days after the... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

• Advertise To Facebook Users By Recency With Time Range Targeting

  Greg Finn

  24 May 2013 | 1:21 pm

  A new Facebook Ad targeting feature now allows advertisers to target those who have recently interacted with Facebook. The targeting type “Action Spec” allows users to target by the recency of specific actions taken. This recency targeting is currently in beta mode. The new... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

• Missing Facebook Page Insights? Users Reporting Only Seeing Data Up To May 15

  Amy Gesenhues

  24 May 2013 | 1:01 pm

  Facebook Page owners are reporting that they cannot view Insights data beyond May 15. When the first reports started appearing in a Facebook Community Forum thread, many users commented that their data was only viewable up to May 13. Since the initial complaints posted this past Tuesday, some users... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

• Marketing Day: May 24, 2013

  Matt McGee

  24 May 2013 | 12:58 pm

  Here’s our daily recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the Web. From Marketing Land: Founder Of First Bid-Based PPC Search Engine Launches New Mobile Ad Solution Mobile application and ad solutions developer UberMedia has... Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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  ISEdb.COM

• SEO Tools and Extensions

  Jill Whalen

  14 May 2013 | 6:40 am

  I am not a big tool user in general. By that I mean the types of tools that supposedly help you “optimize” your website. There is no perfect page for SEO purposes, so in my opinion any tool that claims to give you information such as how many words you need here or there is simply wrong. What most of those tools do is look at the top 10 ranking sites for a specific keyword phrase and then take averages of how many words they have in the Title tags, within the content, etc. Which to me is just silly. An average doesn’t tell you anything. One page might have 1,000 words and…

• Content Marketing Metrics Fun With Google Analytics

  Jill Whalen

  9 Apr 2013 | 6:45 am

  The phrase “content marketing” seems to be the latest buzzword in online marketing circles. Every SEO consultant and agency is talking about it and writing about it. The SMX West Conference being held this week in San Jose even has a whole day devoted to learning about content marketing. While it’s new to many, content marketing is how I built my own business since the turn of the century when I started writing my first newsletter. (Does that make me a dinosaur? ;) More recently, I talked about what content marketing is and how it relates to SEO in this interview for…

• Link Building Opportunity Red Flags

  Nick Stamoulis

  22 Mar 2013 | 6:27 am

  Link building is an important component of SEO because inbound links are what help to convey trust to the search engines. Link building can be approached many ways. There’s an easy way and a hard way. Take a guess which one has the biggest impact on your SEO? If you think that link building is easy, it means that you’re probably approaching it the wrong way and the links that you are building aren’t really doing much good for your site. In fact, they could be harming the site. The links that are the most valuable today are the ones that take time to achieve and are based on…

• Prepare for Successful PPC Campaigns Before You Pay for a Single Click

  Scott Buresh

  19 Mar 2013 | 7:03 am

  As a PPC management company, we are often called upon to “fix” PPC campaigns that are not performing at an acceptable level (or are not performing, period). What we often discover is that these campaigns cannot be “tweaked” into success, because they were not built on a solid foundation from the outset. Without taking the time to craft a clear PPC strategy before you even log in to Google AdWords or Bing for the first time, you are putting yourself at a severe disadvantage. Below are some important initial considerations that are often missing from the PPC campaigns…

• Google Reader Is Shutting Down July 1st

  Tariq Ali

  14 Mar 2013 | 12:41 pm

  If you are a Google Reader user and visited the site today then you were greeted by this message: This was part of Google spring cleaning that began in 2001 and was posted on their blog yesterday: “We’re living in a new kind of computing environment. Everyone has a device, sometimes multiple devices. It’s been a long time since we have had this rate of change—it probably hasn’t happened since the birth of personal computing 40 years ago. To make the most of these opportunities, we need to focus—otherwise we spread ourselves too thin and lack impact. So today we’re announcing…

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  Internet Marketing News - Search Engine Marketing

• Google AdWords: Buy Targeted Traffic That Leads to Conversion

  Chris Robertson

  25 May 2013 | 8:51 pm

  The determinant of success for any online business is the amount of traffic that they get to their website. This is because traffic leads to conversion and therefore if you are not getting any traffic to your site then you are probably not selling anything. While there are many free tools that people can use to get traffic to their sites so as to improve their conversion rates, most of these are usually not effective in the short run and could take weeks before their results show. It is for this reason that people decide to buy traffic for their sites instead. While this involves some…

• Email Marketing Services: Adding Efficiency to Your Email Marketing Campaigns

  Chris Robertson

  25 May 2013 | 8:51 am

  Email marketing is undoubtedly one of the most effective methods of online marketing today and many online businesses are taking it up. However, in order to run an effective email marketing campaign, one must have some tools in place that will help them create and build a database of email addresses, initiate and track email campaigns and be sure that their messages reach the intended recipients. All these tools can be easily attained by simply using email marketing services for your campaign. Some of the tools you will be able to get from an email marketing service include: * Database tools…

• The Importance of Link Building for Online Businesses

  Chris Robertson

  24 May 2013 | 8:51 pm

  In order to guarantee the success of your online business, there are certain things that you need to invest some time and effort in doing. One of these is link building. This is the process of improving the link popularity of your site and it can be achieved through a number of ways such as through article promotion, blog reviews, directory submissions, social bookmarking, and link exchange programs just to mention a few. No matter what technique you use to achieve link building, there are numerous benefits that it can accrue for your business. Some of the most important benefits that online…

• Build Brand Awareness Using Banner Ads

  Chris Robertson

  24 May 2013 | 8:51 am

  Banner ads are a type of web advertising using an ad or ‘banner’ on a web page to bring potential customers to another site, generally to initiate a sale or provide information. It is usually a small rectangular or square ad, commonly at the top, bottom or side of the page advertising a product or service. It often contains animation to attract the most attention and largest audience. The animation encourages the viewer to ‘click on’ a button, which takes them via a hyperlink to another page where they are presented with the product or service to purchase. Some banner…

• Are You Looking for Online Press Release Services?

  Chris Robertson

  23 May 2013 | 8:51 pm

  When it comes to promoting an online business, there are many methods that one can choose to use. However, of late, one method that has been considered to be very effective in this respect is the use of online press releases. It is due to this fact that press release services have become very popular and are now one of the main services offered by search engine optimization firms. Press releases are usually submitted and distributed through media channels so as to ensure maximized exposure for businesses and organizations and this could consequently lead to more traffic and higher conversion…

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  Search Engine Watch - Latest

• Ecommerce Title Tags: Top 5 Ways to Increase Clicks

  Amanda Massello

  24 May 2013 | 6:30 am

  The first steps of commerce take place within the search results. Give consumers a better sense of offers and pricing with your title tags. By exposing more information up front, sites can better align with the right consumer and get more clicks.

• Guest Blogging vs. Guest Posting – Imagine A World Without Links

  Andy Betts

  24 May 2013 | 5:30 am

  For months, debate has raged about the merits of guest posting, the relationship between content and links, backlinks, publishers and signature links, guest posting, and comments. It's time to shed a little clarity on the subject in a simple format.

• 5 Content Lessons & SEO Opportunities From Bloomingdale's

  Christina Zila

  24 May 2013 | 4:30 am

  Bloomingdale's is a leader in fashion in the brick and mortar world. But how does a store with history back to the 1800s adapt to the new online world? Let's look at a few tactics Bloomingdale's uses in content marketing and a few SEO opportunities.

• Google Talks Back: Conversational Search Available on New Version of Chrome

  Jessica Lee

  23 May 2013 | 1:30 pm

  Google conversational search rolled out on the new version of Chrome this week. While the “OK Google” search prompt we heard about at the I/O event is not yet available, Google is attempting to have relevant conversations with users.

• Google's Top Charts Offer Engaging Visuals for Popular Searches Over Time

  Jessica Lee

  23 May 2013 | 11:45 am

  Google has added a new visual feature in Google Trends that allows users to explore trending people, places, and things over time, back to 2004. Interactive charts are sharable, allowing users to highlights data that’s interesting to them.

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  Internet Marketing Blog | Social Media Marketing | Internet Marketing News

• ‘FTC Is Probing Whether Google Hurts Competitors In Web Display Advertising’ – Business Insider

  Tarun Patel

  23 May 2013 | 7:46 pm

  The latest article on Business Insider is titled ”The FTC Is Probing Whether Google Hurts Competitors In Web Display Advertising”. Jim Edwards says, “The FTC has launched an antitrust probe into whether Google’s dominance of the display ad business on the web hurts competition, Bloomberg reports. The assessment, which is preliminary and may not develop into a full investigation, is looking at whether Google is involved in illegal “tying,” or “bundling” — the practice of requiring customers to buy linked products in more than one…

• ‘Top Apps for Managing Your Social Media Marketing On-The-Go’ – ‘Business 2 Community’ Article

  Tarun Patel

  23 May 2013 | 7:43 pm

  The latest article on ‘Business 2 Community’ is titled “Top Apps for Managing Your Social Media Marketing On-The-Go”. Marcela De Vivo says, “Keeping track of social media while running a business is a time-consuming task in and of itself. Fortunately, downloading any of these apps enables businesses to efficiently keep track of social media activity”. Top Apps for Managing Your Social Media Marketing On-The-Go Business2Community.com

• ‘Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day – Is It Really Possible?’ by Denise Wakeman

  Tarun Patel

  23 May 2013 | 7:23 pm

  Denise Wakeman’s latest blog post is titled “Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day – Is It Really Possible? [Infographic]”. Wakeman says, “How much time do you spend on social media (for your business) every day? Do you wonder where the time goes and then fret that you don’t have enough time to create content or products or learn new strategies and tactics to grow your business? The “I don’t have time” complaint has been addressed by me and others many, many, many times. And after seeing the infographic below, let’s look at it again. Yes, social marketing…

• CPA Power Blast: Power up your CPA business through paid traffic #ad

  pgcullum

  23 May 2013 | 7:20 pm

  Paid traffic has a lot of advantages over organic or SEO traffic ■ It’s instant. It often takes weeks or months for your SEO to reap results. ■ It’s predictable. Buy 500 impressions and you’ll get that many. SEO is hit or miss. ■ It can be tuned: to weed out unprofitable keywords so costs are quickly trimmed. Figuring out what SEO attributes to tweak is hard and time-consuming. Timothy Miranda and Myron Ramsay have found the Bing ads work very well for CPA. Bing seems to like affiliates and their ads better than Google does. And Bing’s traffic is targeted quality…

• ‘Affiliate Marketing Meetups in May 2013’ by Shawn Collins

  Tarun Patel

  23 May 2013 | 7:17 pm

  Shawn Collins’ latest blog post is titled “Affiliate Marketing Meetups in May 2013”. Collins Says, “The monthly Affiliate Summit meetups are taking place during the last week of of May around the U.S. and Canada. These meetups are free, and they provide a chance to network with affiliate marketers in your local area, as well as to learn from a speaker”. Affiliate Marketing Meetups in May 2013 Shawn Collins’ Blog

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  The Search Agents

• Grant’s Rants – Penguin 2.0

  Taylor deDiego

  23 May 2013 | 3:40 pm

  We are excited to introduce a new blog series called “Grant’s Rants”, where The Search Agency’s Director of SEO, Grant Simmons, rants and raves about the current search marketing landscape. You can expect short videos about Google’s algorithm updates, search marketing conference recaps, search marketing news, and some British humor on a weekly basis. This week, Grant rants about Penguin 2.0 from the comfort of his car. Here are his thoughts on Google’s recent algorithm update and the effect of Penguin on marketers.

• Gmail Money Transfers: One You Won’t Want Going to the Spam Folder

  Nathan Mikami

  22 May 2013 | 9:47 am

  Having moved to the UK from the US four years ago I can say with confidence that the most difficult part has been trying to completely understand the foreign culture. There have been many conversations that I’ve just simply not had the ability to stay involved in; I got lost on the word “knackered”  and I didn’t understand who these “punters” were at the local pub – did they just go around kicking things? But eventually it all began to make more sense; I remembered to look the other way when crossing the road and randomly started to greet people by saying “Hiya” (this is…

• Insights from the SMX Twitter Stream – 140 Character Bites from SMX London

  Grant Simmons

  21 May 2013 | 11:01 am

  I spent last week at SMX London, a gathering of European search marketers and brands, learning and contributing to the development of better search and social practices and process. The conference was abuzz with Google news, due to Matt Cutts’ (Google web spam team lead) announcements and the Google I/O conference taking place halfway around the world. And as an active participant in Twitter, I thought it would be valuable to share some of these live tweets to give insights into the presentation themes, all in bite–sized twitter chunks! Note: I ended up being the most prolific of…

• Search Marketing for Subscription Businesses

  Alec Green

  15 May 2013 | 10:40 am

  The recurring-revenue business model is certainly not a new one.   Newspapers, magazines, country clubs, cable television, and the infamous Columbia House Music Club (12 CDs for the price of 1!) have all used various forms of subscriptions to earn a steady, predictable revenue stream from their customer base.  And the allure of this pricing structure is rather obvious.   Companies can significantly reduce their total marketing expenditure if they don’t have to acquire, and then re-acquire the same customers to make the same purchase.   Customers that are willing to commit to a…

• 5 Takeaways from the iMedia Agency Summit

  Delia Perez

  14 May 2013 | 12:06 pm

  Last week I attended iMedia’s Agency Summit, where agency professionals gathered to discuss agency evolution and media progression.  With a focus on big data and the balance between strategy and media technology, this year’s summit presentations and panel discussions were grounded in a conversation around the integration (or lack thereof) between creativity and data.  Presenters highlighted the thesis that there is still a long way to go before we can call the marriage of data and creative a success, and offered recommendations/predictions of how the two will successfully come together…

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  eMarketer Articles and Newsroom Posts

• Article: Social Advertisers Rely on Branded Pages More Than Paid Ads

  23 May 2013 | 9:01 pm

  US advertisers are taking full advantage of social media as a free channel through which to reach customers. Research shows that more advertisers use social platforms to create branded pages than to purchase ads. Those who do buy targeted ads are most interested in narrowing their message according to demographics.

• Article: Consumer Goods Industry Takes the UK Video Ad Lead

  23 May 2013 | 9:01 pm

  As video advertising gets bigger, the participating industries are shifting somewhat. Research shows that the consumer goods category has surpassed entertainment for video ad impressions. Entertainment sites still hosted the most video ads, but gaming, sports and music all grew their share.

• Article: To Handle Big Data, Advertisers Turn to DMPs

  23 May 2013 | 9:01 pm

  Big Data offers marketers a lot of promise—along with many headaches—as the quantity of data out there makes it hard to create actionable insights. Data management platforms (DMPs) are increasingly being used to manage and process the many different kinds of incoming data and put it to use.

• Article: Marketing in Mexico: YouTube Boasts Cable TV-Size Audience

  23 May 2013 | 9:01 pm

  John Farrell, YouTube's director of content partnerships for Latin America, spoke to eMarketer about the evolving market for online video in Mexico and YouTube’s business there.

• Article: Smartphones in the Hands of the Youngest Demographic

  22 May 2013 | 9:01 pm

  US kids as young as elementary-school age are increasingly picking up smartphones, with research finding 19% of this demographic use the devices. Among the devices owned and used by school-age children, smartphones see penetration levels just behind PCs.

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  Posts about Search Marketing - Organic/Natural (SEO) from the Econsultancy blog

• Penguin 2.0: where does SEO go from here?

  Kristian Bannister

  24 May 2013 | 1:40 am

  Matt Cutts announced this week that Google update ‘Penguin 2.0’ has been rolled out and has affected about 2.3% of English-US queries.  With Google so keen to cut down on webspam, where does SEO go from here?This is a major update and will likely have an impact on the Google rankings for an abundance of sites. The reason Google is calling this ‘2.0’ when there have in fact been four Penguin updates is because this is the first update of Penguin that has changed the algorithm, instead of a refresh. Matt Cutts: It's a brand new generation of algorithms. The previous iteration of…

• Seven core principles digital marketers forget

  Pratik Dholakiya

  23 May 2013 | 9:11 am

  Guy Kawasaki once said: 'If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing'. We’d like to think that no matter what you have, money or brains or both, inbound marketing is the only kind of marketing that works today. Inbound marketing, by the way, has a lot to do with digital marketing. If you are a digital marketer, you are probably forgetting a few marketing principles. Here are some of them...If you aren’t doing anything remarkable, don’t show up Seth Godin wrote an entire book…

• A day in the life of a… Head of Multilingual Search Marketing

  Chris Lake

  23 May 2013 | 4:30 am

  Ed Langley is Head Of Multilingual Search Marketing at Search Laboratory. Here he explains what he does in an average working day. If you're on the hunt for a new challenge - or want to start a career - in search, then do check out the search marketing jobs on the Econsultancy jobs site.Please describe your job! What does a Head Of Multilingual Search Marketing actually do? I head up the multilingual team at Search Laboratory which is made up of 35 mother-tongue linguists from everywhere from China to Denmark to Russia, all working on campaigns in over 35 languages across 18 countries.  I am…

• The essential small business website checklist

  Chris Gilchrist

  23 May 2013 | 2:44 am

  This checklist is intended to assist small business owners. It outlines the must have elements for your website so you can ensure it has the best chance of succeeding online. This is the first in a short series which aims primarily to benefit small businesses with regards to their websites and online success. Consequently it might also help if you’re a web designer building small sites for businesses on a budget. This small business website checklist will be most relevant for small sites or simple ecommerce sites because it’s a general checklist, but it’s amazing how many bigger (and…

• Why your brand needs 'organisation markup'

  Andrew Isidoro

  23 May 2013 | 2:14 am

  Google recently released a blog post outlining how Schema.org organisation mark-up can be used as a way for publishers to tell Google which preferred logo they’d like to appear against their search results. This had previously been available to brands on Google+ but its availability has been extended following a shift in behaviour by the search engines to try and display this information in a completely new way.Organisation mark-up is part of the Schema.org vocabulary which has given us rich snippets such as reviews and event data within the search engines’ results pages. However, Google…

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  SMS

• Five For Friday — May 20-24, 2013

  Frances Mary Krug

  24 May 2013 | 11:33 am

    Here are five of this week’s most interesting and informative posts and news items for this week: 1.  Google’s Penguin Update 2.0: Loser analysis — Of course the big news this week is the announcement of the release of Penguin 2.0 by Google. Early results show that big losers are gaming and porn sites and Searchmetrics has the stats to prove it. 2.  Introducing More Useful Pins — the Pinterest blog has details of recent changes that will let you add more info to your boards as well as pin from mobile. For business, the really interesting part is “rich…

• 5 Trends Of The Burgeoning Ecommerce Revolution

  Daryl Logullo

  23 May 2013 | 12:32 pm

    We’re in the midst of another revolution in online commerce. Much like the first round of dot-com innovation from 1997-2000, another societal shift is happening related to devices, portability, and mobile commerce. Here are five major trends I am seeing, with memes or catchphrase I’ve named. Unlike the dot-com bubble of last decade, these trends are highly unlikely to ever burst. Trend #1:  Mobipersonal The mass revolution we’re experiencing everywhere of constant connectivity could be coined a “mobile personal” experience.  Devices are portable, go where we go, and provide…

• Enhanced Campaigns On Google AdWords: Three Noteworthy Additions

  Rebecca Appleton

  20 May 2013 | 11:50 am

    Earlier this year Google announced that AdWords advertisers would be treated to a much wider range of advertising options and capability. Now available to all, enhanced campaigns are a great way to make PPC dollars work that much harder and more intuitively. Becoming accustomed to enhanced campaigns can take some getting used to. Strategically speaking, they are a little more complex than simply creating an ad group, adding keywords and writing an ad text, but the payoffs are much bigger in terms of relevance, return, and overall performance. So what are enhanced campaigns and what are…

• Five For Friday — May 13-17, 2013

  Frances Mary Krug

  17 May 2013 | 5:41 pm

    Here are five of this week’s most interesting and important news and articles centered on online marketing: 1.  How to Move Rankings Up On Older, Existing Content – Whiteboard Friday — SEOmoz’s Whiteboard Fridays are almost always worth looking at, but this week’s is particularly useful for anyone who has an older website and has seen their rankings slowly decline. 2.  What to expect in SEO in the coming months — You may have only heard about Matt Cutts of Google’s Web Spam team, but you need to listen to him when he talks about what is…

• Untangling Google+, Google Profile, And Google Authorship – Part 1

  Rebecca Appleton

  15 May 2013 | 2:08 pm

    Google Plus may be one of the fastest growing social networks ever but it hasn’t been without its problems. One of the biggest complaints leveled at it, certainly from a business perspective, is that it’s quite difficult to get to grips with. It’s surprising because Google Plus actually has quite a lot in common with Facebook – you can have a personal profile, just as you can a personal Facebook account. And you can have a Google Plus business page, just as you can have a Facebook page. There’s also the +1 button which performs much the same function as the Facebook like…

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  B2B Search Engine Marketing & Social Media Blog | KoMarketing Associates » Search Engine Marketing Blog

• Search: Moving Beyond Your Website in 2013

  Casie Gillette

  21 May 2013 | 11:20 am

  When we think of SEO, we think about the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) and how well our website(s) perform in the results of these search engines. It makes sense. After all, the goal of any good SEO program is to drive qualified traffic from search engines, to your site in order to generate leads and sales. The thing is, there are other ways to optimize for “search” that don’t include your website or the search engines themselves. Questions to consider asking: Where are your customers searching for information? Are they only searching in Google? Are they spending…

• 10 of the Best B2B Facebook Pages

  Ryan Young

  16 May 2013 | 8:26 am

  Facebook has emerged as a marketing channel that’s been adopted by countless individuals and brands alike. In fact, Facebook, the world’s largest social network, now has more than 1 billion users, including about 15 million brand pages. This presents marketers across all industries with an opportunity to tap into this massively connected audience and showcase their brand. This is even true in the B2B sector, where 44% of business executives (directors and above) use Facebook, which provides an opportunity for B2B Facebook pages to be seen by decision-making individuals at…

• 3 Ways To Differentiate Your Brand in Search Engine Results

  Abe Bellini

  7 May 2013 | 6:49 am

  B2B marketers are constantly tasked with the challenge of driving lead growth, increasing web traffic, and improving brand differentiation. Organic search visibility is an important component and differentiation in search engine results can be a critical factor in traffic and lead growth. In the following examples I will outline useful ways in which an organization can optimize their website, distinguish their keyword visibility from others, and aim to increase organic visits. Optimizing Existing HTML Title Tags With the assistance of the Screaming Frog SEO Spider you can scan key SEO…

• B2B Content Marketing Trends in the Software Industry: CMI Survey Recap

  Stacy Thompson

  1 May 2013 | 9:04 am

  Last month, Content Marketing Institute (CMI) released its report, “B2B Software Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and TrendsNorth America,” sponsored by the International Data Group (IDG).  The report, which highlights responses from more than 1400 B2B software marketers across the U.S. and Canada, represents a full range of industries (advertising/marketing, software, consulting, manufacturing, healthcare, and finance), functional areas, and company sizes. Report results and analysis indicate several key insights, including the percentage of software marketers using content…

• You’re Not eBay. Why Paid Search Still Makes Sense for B2B Marketers

  Joseph Vivolo

  23 Apr 2013 | 7:16 am

  A recent study released by eBay, “Consumer Heterogeneity and Paid Search Effectiveness: A Large Scale Field Experiment” refutes the value of paid search and claims an overall ineffectiveness both of branded and non-branded keyword ads. Over a specified test period, eBay conducted a series of SEM campaign experiments that stopped running paid queries for brand based keyword strings in search results to determine if organic results picked up the clicks of the forgone advertisements. In addition, eBay selected a group of test cities in the US to cease all non-branded keyword advertisements…

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  The Search Engine Marketing Blog @ MoreVisibility

• Upgrade to Enhanced Campaigns by July 22nd

  Anne Garcia

  24 May 2013 | 6:10 am

  Don’t forget that all Google AdWords advertisers must upgrade all existing campaigns to Enhanced Campaigns by July 22, 2013 or Google will automatically migrate your current campaigns for you, which may impact your advertising targeting settings. Google is updating its device targeting by combining desktop and tablet devices under one setting where advertisers will not [...]

• Twitter Introduces Timeline Keyword Targeting to All Advertisers

  Anne Garcia

  23 May 2013 | 5:20 am

  Last month Twitter introduced Keyword Targeting in Timeline, which allows advertisers to target users based on the keywords within their Tweets or Tweets that they have recently engaged with. Advertisers can easily select the keywords that they would like to target and then layer in targeting for location, device and gender. This new option allows [...]

• Pending Federal Sales Tax Law Could Impact Online Retailers

  Anne Garcia

  17 May 2013 | 7:40 am

  A new measure called the Marketplace Fairness Act is currently pending passage by the House of Representatives. It would impact the way many online retailers operate because it would mandate sales tax collection by all retailers that do at least $1 million in sales, where they don’t have a physical presence like stores or distribution [...]

• Google Updates its Shopping Feed Specs

  Anne Garcia

  15 May 2013 | 5:16 am

  Last year Google introduced Google Shopping, where the search engine migrated their Merchant Center product to a commercial model via Product Listing Ads through AdWords. Last week, Google announced that they are making some changes to the Google Shopping Feed Specification in order to improve the quality of data that merchants provide. Some of the [...]

• Google to Retire Product Extensions This Month

  Anne Garcia

  14 May 2013 | 10:00 am

  Google has announced that they will be retiring Product Extension ads in late May 2013, which comes after Product Listing Ads were introduced to advertisers last year. Google says that advertisers have seen better results from their paid model of Product Listing Ads and as a result, they will retire Product Extensions which will no [...]

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  SEM CLUBHOUSE

• New Filter Fields in Google Analtyics

  Carrie Hill

  17 May 2013 | 6:25 am

  If you’re an intermediate to advanced user of Google Analytics, you’ve likely used Filters to manipulate data into something you can understand and work with.  One example would be the tweak I shared to demystify the black hole of Not Provided. Earlier this week Google Analytics announced the availability of a whole herd of new filter fields.  The new fields heavily target those with high-volume mobile traffic, but don’t feel left out if that’s not your niche, there are also some interesting non-mobile options, or options that can be combined with mobile if you like.

• Don’t Get Whacked Out Poo Brain – a Webinar Recap from SEOMoz and Ian Lurie

  Carrie Hill

  9 May 2013 | 8:13 am

  I attend a lot of webinars.  Learning, and brushing up on techniques is what keeps us good, and on the edge of what matters to clients. The first thing I noticed about this webinar was the Title. Click the image above or get the slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/wrttnwrd/time-management-for-marketers-the-mozinar “Don’t Get Whacked Out Poo Brain.” – If you’re a fan of Adventure Time – how can you stay away from that?  If you’re not, stick with it, because the context will provide the definition.  Here’s a link to the recording over at…

• Three Things People Really Hate About Your (poorly) Optimized Content

  Carrie Hill

  6 May 2013 | 11:06 am

  Optimizing content is a process by which relevant keyword phrases are included in text on a web page. WELL optimized content is a whole other animal.  Anyone can write some text and cram some keywords into it.  Writing text that pleases users, and search engines, is an art.  Not everyone can do it, not everyone should.  I thought of some things I’ve seen recently that drive this point home.  If you cant do this for your own content, hire a professional.  You wouldn’t ask your mechanic to write your marketing plan, would you? Here are 3 things people hate about your optimized…

• Google Enhanced Campaigns and Keyword Level URLs

  Mike Churchill

  2 May 2013 | 11:00 am

  Since Google announced their new Enhanced Campaigns initiative which combines desktop and mobile search advertising into a single campaign, AdWords advertisers have been working to upgrade their campaigns into the new system. Google recently announced that ALL campaigns will be automatically upgraded starting in July 2013. One issue that came to light with the initial announcement was how to handle URLs that are specified at the Keyword level in an adGroup, in conjunction with a site that uses separate URLs for mobile visitors. In the past, one might run separate desktop and mobile campaigns,…

• You Don’t Have to Spend A Lot To Make More Money From Your Website

  Carrie Hill

  25 Apr 2013 | 7:51 am

  Sometimes very small businesses must rely on what they can do for themselves to keep their online marketing efforts fresh.  There has never been any argument that small budgets sometimes prohibit small businesses from getting agency help. That’s okay.  If you do your due diligence and are careful, there’s no reason you cannot help your online presence, and revenue from your presence, by rolling up your sleeves and doing some of the work yourself. I found some resources that will definitely help you out.  Some of these resources might list “comment on blogs” or…

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  The Invesp Blog: E-commerce and Landing page Optimization

• 7 CRO Lessons From a Billion-Dollar Ecommerce Retailer

  Stephen Da Cambra

  18 May 2013 | 6:15 am

  Few online retailers provide a better case study of ecommerce success than Zappos.com. Launched in 1999 as an online shoe store, Zappos rang up $1.6 Million in sales in 2000.  Eight years later, revenue passed $1 Billion, still largely on the sale of footwear. That’s a 667% increase in eight years. While there are many reasons for Zappos’ success, one of them is their attention to detail in their checkout optimization. They set examples from which we can all learn. Take a look at the image below from the Zappos shopping cart summary page. It’s like a textbook on conversion rate…

• US Mobile Commerce Sales – Statistics and Trends [Infographic]

  khalid

  6 May 2013 | 11:51 pm

  The US mobile commerce industry is growing. Check out this infographic to know the latest US M-commerce retail sales statistics, along with why consumers prefer mobile shopping, and how much time consumers spend on mobile shopping and much more.   Infographic by- Invesp To Publish this Image on your Blog or Website . Copy this code Infographic by- Invesp By 2015, US Mobile commerce retail sales are expected to account for 24% of the total e-commerce sales. US M-commerce Retail Sales Statistics(In Billions) Year M-commerce Retail Sales US E-commerce Retail Sales %Age Of Retail E-commerce…

• Your Business Opportunity on Social Media Awaits

  Stephen Da Cambra

  3 May 2013 | 6:48 am

  If you own or manage a business and you haven’t reviewed Invesp’s infographic “Actvity Levels of Businesses on Social Media”, then do so sooner than later. Here’s a few reasons why: 1. Social Commerce Revenues $30 Billion. When compared to global retail sales of about $15 Trillion and the fact that ecommerce sales topped $1 Trillion for the first time in 2012, $30 Billion seems like a sneeze. But, consider that’s about $5 for every person on the planet, whether they are on social media or not, and suddenly the number has some appeal. What’s more, the number is for social…

• From UX to Search Engine Rankings, the Big Benefits of Customer Reviews

  Stephen Da Cambra

  29 Apr 2013 | 5:45 am

  Last week, as part of the “Conversion Optimization Tactics in Action” blog post, we made note of how Simply BBQ used customer reviews and customer-generated content. First, the site features excerpts from customer testimonials throughout. The excerpts are also compiled in a series of testimonials pages, four in all, with entries from a cross-section of Simply BBQ’s customers, including large multinational corporations, local businesses, municipalities and private individuals. Simply BBQ then shows some innovation in a feature that allows their customers to “Like This Menu” with a…

• Activity Levels of Businesses on Social Media [Infographic]

  khalid

  25 Apr 2013 | 12:19 am

  Social media has become an important part of marketing campaigns for businesses. Business owners are now more aware of how social media can help them grow. Read our infographic to understand: • How businesses use popular social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and so on) • How much time they spend on these platforms • How they connect with their customers and much more.   Infographic by- Invesp To Publish this Image on your Blog or Website . Copy this code Infographic by- Invesp Some Interesting Facts Internet users spend 22.5% of their time social networking while online. By…

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  eBay, ecommerce, life

• Tim Ferriss and multiplying parameters beyond necessity

  trevor

  16 May 2013 | 2:41 pm

  Those of you who have had the pleasure of spending any quality time with me will probably have heard me mention the 4 hour work week by Tim Ferriss.  Like just about everyone, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Mr Ferriss.  I think that (at least in his first book) about 50% of his ideas are brilliant and 50% are complete rubbish.  As most books struggle to be 10% interesting let alone brilliant I was rather impressed overall.  I would summarise the 4 hour working week thus: Axiom: We all hate our jobs and would rather be having fun Solution: Given this fact you should find…

• Things to go in packages

  trevor

  30 Sep 2012 | 12:07 pm

  I’ve been recently pondering things which we could put in our outgoing packages.  Here are my thoughts: Paper invoices Some people think these are a bit outmoded, but I am a fan of the paper invoice.  It gives the customer something to hold onto after the sale in case they need to contact us or send the product back.  We print our return information on the invoice which should (theoretically) reduce customer service queries. Branded gift I was at a customer day recently and all the exhibitors were giving away mountains of freebies (see Quality Logo Products for examples).  I…

• Links for 2012-09-15 [del.icio.us]

  16 Sep 2012 | 12:00 am

  Check Details. RED ... Taoist Sex Secrets Kama Sutra Tantra from Asia

• Links for 2012-09-14 [del.icio.us]

  15 Sep 2012 | 12:00 am

  Question2Answer - Free Open Source Q Stackoverflow clone ripper234/Stack-Underflow · GitHub Stackoverflow clone in asp.net mvc (no active development) BitNami OSQA Stack OSQA | The Open Source Q

• Amazon repricing and the race to the bottom

  trevor

  14 Sep 2012 | 1:19 pm

  Many Amazon sellers there days are using Amazon repricing, the practise of repricing offers so that they are the cheapest within max and min price limits.  What you sacrifice in margin you make up in volume, or so the theory goes. I have so far avoided this strategy (though I think we will succumb very soon) reasoning that our margins were low enough as it is.  There have also been a few scare stories in the press worrying about automatic robo pricing causing prices to go out of control and merchants to go bust.   This seemed a bit daft to me as surely merchants can set their own minimum…

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  ReelSEO Video Marketing

• Superman, Star Wars, and Zombies: Fun Video Friday

  Chris Atkinson

  24 May 2013 | 8:25 am

  Did you ever want to see what would happen if Superman kicked a man in the balls? Did you really want to see Patton Oswalt's Star Wars filibuster from Parks & Recreation to come to life? Did you ever want to see a zombie feed on brains in a drive thru? Look no further.

• April 2013 comScore: Ads Continue to Explode

  Chris Atkinson

  23 May 2013 | 12:50 pm

  comScore released their April Video Metrix and the ad boom continues, as we saw yet another record amount of ads last month. Virtually everything stays the same from March in total videos viewed, unique viewers, and so on.

• Video and Alcohol: What Beer, Wines, and Spirits Need to Keep In Mind

  Chris Atkinson

  23 May 2013 | 11:00 am

  Unruly has found some interesting things out about video and the alcohol industry. Namely, they should be using it a lot more. Only four ads make up 97 percent of the entire social video market. Many brands are missing out on some great opportunities.

• 6 Types of Video Marketing and How They Work [Creator's Tip #92}

  Tim Schmoyer

  23 May 2013 | 9:35 am

  There are six types of video marketing that a business can use when attracting interest in a product. Which one works best for you? Do all of them work best for you? Are you that kind of video junkie? Read on, and discover a marketing strategy that works.

• Revision3, Discovery Launch TestTube Digital Network

  Chris Atkinson

  23 May 2013 | 8:24 am

  Revision3 and Discovery are launching a new digital network called TestTube. It has all the types of shows you'd expect from the geeky/nerdy set that help us learn more about our world and maybe even laugh in the process.

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  HigherVisibility

• What to Look For When Completing an SEO Analysis

  Amanda DiSilvestro

  24 May 2013 | 11:08 am

  Oftentimes when people approach SEO for the first time, it’s all about link building. Everything is about outward changes and reaching outward to different industry leaders and trying to build links and relationships. While this is indeed a huge part of any SEO strategy, it’s important that companies realize that your internal processes might need to change. You (or more likely your SEO agency) have to audit everything about your website and be prepared to change major components of your website if necessary. When it comes to completing an SEO analysis, there are some things that an SEO…

• When Paid Links are OK

  Nick

  23 May 2013 | 1:14 pm

  There are different ways to approach SEO.  You can be “white hat” and adhere to all of the search engine Webmaster Guidelines.  You can be “black hat” and ignore the search engine Webmaster Guidelines in hopes that you can beat the system and get your site ranking quickly.  Or you can be “gray hat” which falls somewhere in the middle.  Obviously, any reputable SEO firm would only recommend white hat tactics, and stay away from any tactic that is frowned upon by the search engines. One of these “bad” SEO tactics is paying for links. Links are an essential part of an SEO…

• Google+ Design Change: What It Means to You

  Adam Heitzman

  22 May 2013 | 7:29 am

  Google+ is following its competition with a design change that has everyone up in arms. As usual, some like the changes made while more disapprove. The new design is going to take some getting used to, but the worlds biggest search engine had the best intentions in mind for both businesses and individuals when it came to the very photo-friendly redesign. Top 5 Latest Changes to the Google+ Design As discussed above, the vast majority of changes that we see center around images. It’s no secret that the web is becoming more photo-focused, and Google took that idea and ran with it. A few of…

• Will Hiring More than One SEO Company Help Speed Up Your Efforts?

  Amanda DiSilvestro

  21 May 2013 | 7:45 am

  In many business settings, the more people you have working on a project the better. You want things to get done quickly, you want everyone to have a specific job they can truly master, and the more minds ready to collaborate the better product you’ll have in the end. Now that SEO is becoming more and more important to an overall business strategy, this idea leads many to that inevitable question: Is the same true for SEO work? The Cons of Hiring More than One SEO Company at One Time Most SEOs will advise you against trying to cheat the system and hire a bunch of different agencies. Having…

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  Search Marketing - Darin Carter

• Yahoo! Buys Tumblr for $1.1 Billion

  Casey Kurlander

  21 May 2013 | 1:00 am

  Yahoo! announced Monday morning that they have agreed to pay $1.1 billion (cash!) for Tumblr, a six-year-old online blogging service. Since she joined Yahoo! last July, CEO Marissa Mayer has acquired several companies that appeal to younger audiences, including Summly, Astrid and Jybe.  I think this acquisition definitely comes as another one of Yahoo’s attempts to make itself more relevant among young people, and in order to do that, you need to have some sort of blogging platform.  In addition to making the announcement of the acquisition, Yahoo promised not to “screw up”…

• What to Expect This Summer From Google

  Casey Kurlander

  20 May 2013 | 1:16 am

  The latest video to be released by Google’s Matt Cutts gives webmasters a heads up as to what they can expect to see in the near future in terms of SEO for the search engine.  As usual, he reminds viewers to take the information with a grain of salt because things are always subject to change (timing, when they launch, etc.), but he claims that this is what Google is up to. Here are some of the upcoming changes that Matt says have either been approved or look promising: Penguin 4/Penguin 2.0 I don’t think it’s any secret that Google is relatively close to deploying the next generation…

• Third-Party Apps for Google Glass Revealed

  Casey Kurlander

  16 May 2013 | 2:53 pm

  At Google’s annual I/O developer conference today in San Francisco, the first big wave of third-party apps for the Glass were revealed. Twitter launched its official app, which lets Google Glass users tweet photos and text, as well as reply to, retweet, or favorite tweets and notifications.  Originally there was a third-party app that let users tweet from the device, but it was only capable of sharing photos.  Now when a user shares a photo using the app, it automatically adds the words, “Just shared a photo #throughglass,” in the tweet. In addition to Twitter, the Google…

• Matt Cutts: Google Penguin 2.0 is Coming in “Next Few Weeks”

  Casey Kurlander

  14 May 2013 | 12:55 am

  At a SMX West panel back in March, Matt Cutts promised that there would be a major Google Penguin update this year, one that he thinks will be the most talked about. Last week there was some speculation that this update was taking place.  Cutts put those rumors to rest by tweeting “Nope, no new Penguin update this week.” He later added “We do expect to roll out Penguin 2.0 (next generation of Penguin) sometime in the next few weeks though.” Cutts has referred to this next major update as Penguin 2.0.  However, since there have already been three updates to the Penguin, this…

• What Google Glass Does & Doesn’t Do

  Casey Kurlander

  13 May 2013 | 1:55 am

  Don’t bother searching for porn on the new Google Glass- the adult entertainment industry is not rushing to be part of the action just yet. “We’ve decided to take a wait-and-see approach to Google Glass,” Steven Hirsch, founder and co-chairman of Vivid Entertainment, told FoxNews.com. “We want to see how quickly our target audience chooses to adapt it before we make any decision to move ahead.” Something tells me that it won’t take too long until users are able to watch their favorite porn stars on the small screen- high resolution display is the equivalent of a 25…

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  Traffick: The Business of Search

• On Not Aping Midgeley

  Andrew Goodman

  21 May 2013 | 8:10 am

  On Saturday, Seth Godin gave me something to think about. Thomas Midgeley was the evil genius advocate of leaded gasoline and CFC’s. Both have caused widespread damage; moreover, it’s impossible to argue that there weren’t alternatives. And one crucial way to prevent such damage, as relatively powerless individuals, is to avoid being complicit in the spread of harmful, profit-seeking, short-term, shortcut solutions. In the long run, such “solutions” turn out not to be terribly profitable anyway. Seth closes with a call for “vigilance, candor, and…

• The Finance Minister Who Messed With Marketing

  Andrew Goodman

  8 May 2013 | 11:44 am

  In Canada, as in every country, there are many regulations governing the terms of mortgages offered to consumers. In addition to that, some of Canada’s banks (called “Chartered” banks) have long enjoyed a special, protected status. Not just anyone can open up a bank. The country’s careful rules around mortgage lending terms, amortization periods, required down payments, and mortgage insurance have seemed wisely conservative in hindsight. No greed-driven bubbles of low-quality mortgage lending… less fallout in the form of bursting bubbles and plummeting asset…

• Why Yelp Matters

  Andrew Goodman

  2 May 2013 | 9:31 am

  Even though arguably valued richly, Yelp stock still managed a remarkable rise of 25% in the wake of its most recent quarterly earnings report. What’s driving the optimism for a company that lost 8 cents a share (more than estimates), but posted strong revenue growth of 68% year over year (ahead of estimates)? When it went public, the company had scant revenues, but was already becoming universally known and widely used. Unlike some companies in this user-generated-content space, its international expansion is relatively seamless and legit (like TripAdvisor). Mobile! Some companies…

• Yahoo Taking a Cue from Twitter, or Something Else? Introducing Yahoo Stream Ads

  Andrew Goodman

  29 Apr 2013 | 1:19 pm

  Has Yahoo been doing enough to monetize its home page? Sounds like one of those questions that might’ve made Yahoos really bear down and think hard in 1999, and again in 2003. Which is why, a decade down the road, I wonder if Yahoo needs to reinvent itself entirely, rather than just try to execute better on being Yahoo. That was the argument I made in my previous post. (I’m sure quite a number of folks at Yahoo disagree.) This week I caught wind of a new beta product that’s about to launch for advertisers: Yahoo Stream Ads. (Screen shot below.) The ads are being promoted to…

• The Future of Yahoo

  Andrew Goodman

  11 Apr 2013 | 7:22 am

  This is the long Yahoo strategy post that I don’t have time for today. Instead, it’s now become the 45-second Yahoo strategy post! A lot of people don’t have time for Yahoo anymore, so that’s probably about right. Yahoo’s situation has been dire for many years, yet the company has bumped along at about the same size for so long, it’s easy to lose sight of the need to do something dramatic to change its fortunes. Here’s what Yahoo should do: Acquire Yelp Then, divest every last shred of its “content” and old-media-world functionality to a…

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  Inside AdWords

• Webinar Next Thursday 5/30: Measuring Success in a Multi-Device World

  Katie Miller

  23 May 2013 | 12:00 pm

  The digital journey has grown more complex, giving customers the option to move seamlessly across media and devices. This shift in technology can make it challenging to get a complete picture of customers’ interactions.  As a marketer, your success depends on gaining visibility into your customers’ preferences and behaviors. Next Thursday, join Sara Jablon Moked, Product Marketing Manager for Google Analytics, for a detailed look at effective measurement for today's multi-device world. We will discuss strategies and best practices for measuring customer behavior, and we’ll look at…

• Bidding Best Practices (Part 3) - Calculating mobile bid adjustments

  Katie Miller

  23 May 2013 | 7:09 am

  Today’s post about calculating mobile bid adjustments is the third in a bidding best practices series. The previous post covered improving your results with location bid adjustments. People are now constantly connected and switching seamlessly between devices. In fact, more than 38% of our daily media interactions occur on mobile1. This presents advertisers with new opportunities to reach customers anytime, anyplace, on any device. At Google, we want to help you capitalize on these opportunities and develop new strategies for your business to win on mobile. Mobile bid adjustments in AdWords…

• The new Display Benchmarks Tool: put context around your display campaigns

  Katie Miller

  22 May 2013 | 2:30 pm

  Imagine: you’ve built a beautiful digital marketing campaign and it’s finally live. You get your reports back with a list of data points and while the numbers seem good, it’s pretty hard to understand them without any reference points. That’s the crutch: data doesn’t take on meaning when it’s just floating around in the ether; you need to build context around your data and anchor it to other relevant data points to better understand what your own numbers mean. Industry benchmarks -- reference points aggregated from ad campaigns across the industry -- give you these comparisons.

• Enhanced campaign upgrade tools now generally available for DoubleClick Search

  Katie Miller

  22 May 2013 | 10:21 am

  (Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Search blog) Last month, the DoubleClick Search team introduced the beta release of dedicated tools to help advertisers seamlessly upgrade to enhanced campaigns. Today, we’re excited to announce that these tools are available to all DoubleClick Search customers globally. Read on for details around the newly available features, what's coming, and how customers are seeing success in upgrading to enhanced campaigns with DoubleClick Search. Easily upgrade to enhanced campaigns With this release, advertisers can save time when upgrading to enhanced campaigns…

• Bidding Best Practices (Part 2): Improving Results with Location Bid Adjustments

  Katie Miller

  22 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  Today’s post about improving results with location bid adjustments is the second in a bidding best practices series. The series began with prioritizing and iterating on your bid adjustments. Your advertising performance almost always varies by location, no matter what kind of business you run. The good news is that if you optimize your bids for different locations, you can increase your sales and ROI. Optimizing bids for better performance by location With enhanced campaigns, it’s now much easier to boost bids in locations where your performance is stronger and reduce bids where…

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  Bing Ads Blog

• Pro Binging Now Available in French, German and Portuguese

  Aurea Astro - MSFT

  24 May 2013 | 12:47 pm

  The number of Pro Bingers and aspiring Pro Bingers is exploding! In response to demand for our Bing Ads Accredited Professional Program , we are pleased to announce the launch of the program in three new languages: French , German , and Brazilian Portuguese...(read more)

• Bing Ads Academy – Using Device Targeting on your accounts

  Katrina Morris - MSFT

  24 May 2013 | 6:46 am

  To ensure your account receives as much traffic as possible, Bing Ads will automatically show your accounts ads on all three device types Desktops and Laptops Smartphones and other mobile devices with full browsers Tablets With the targeting...(read more)

• Bing Ads and You: Reference Context to Improve Landing Page Relevance and User Experience

  Arshad Kunju - MSFT

  23 May 2013 | 11:30 am

  In my last post , I provided an overview of how to better guide your customers through their purchase journey and shared optimization tips to help you better engage the same customers with Bing Ads along the way. To review, there are five phases in the...(read more)

• PPC Back to Basics – Find and Add the Right Negative Keywords to Increase Your CTR and ROI

  Simone Schuurer - MSFT

  23 May 2013 | 6:43 am

  As we mentioned in this blog post we’re working on a ‘PPC Back to Basics’ series to help those new to PPC, new to Bing Ads and those who like to be reminded of PPC best practices. Some weeks ago we wrote about how to find the right keywords...(read more)

• Give Some Roar to your SEO to perform in the Bing Organic Results - SMX London

  Simone Schuurer - MSFT

  21 May 2013 | 5:10 pm

  Much to the dislike of my husband who is an Eagle my job somehow tends to take me to the homes of more high profile football clubs. Late last year work took me to Arsenal’s Emirates stadium and last week SMX London summoned me -along with plenty...(read more)

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  PPC Strategies & Pay Per Click News | PPC Hero

• Content Marketing and Facebook: Paying For Readers?

  BoostCTR

  25 May 2013 | 5:50 am

  Did you know buzzfeed advertises on Facebook?  Did you know they’re not advertising for paid subscriptions or buzzfeed t-shirts or anything, but simply flogging their content/articles?   Check it out:     Of course, when I say their articles, that’s not entirely true; they only really advertise “paid content” or “native advertising” — i.e., posts that a corporate advertiser like Samsung or Nike has paid them to help write and promote.   But still, it’s an interesting idea, when you think about it in terms of Facebook ad’s hyper-targeting and the idea…

• Makeover Alert: Keyword Tool + Traffic Estimator = Good Looking Opportunities

  Carrie Albright

  23 May 2013 | 4:45 am

  Makeovers can be the source of discussions and uproar across the land of cyberspace. While some might not be well received, such as Disney’s recent makeover of one of their leading ladies, some makeovers are exactly what we’re looking for. After a great post by Larry Kim, here’s a chance to walk through some new aspects of the Keyword Planner, the most recent upgrade and merge-sensation from AdWords. Combining the best of the Keyword Tool and the Traffic Estimator, with new features tucked in, the Keyword Planner is your chance to up your keyword research game a bit! And if…

• What One Million Dollars In Spend Has Taught Us About Enhanced Campaigns

  Jeff Allen

  22 May 2013 | 4:16 am

  Enhanced campaigns are as bad as we feared. Hanapin has migrated many of the accounts under their management and have found that performance is typically slipping; and sometimes it is even cliff diving. This post analyzes ~$1 million dollars of that ad spend pre and post enhanced campaigns and uncovers where performance has dipped, how spend allocation has changed (due to less control) and a few takeaways we’ve learned for how to stay ahead of the competition on this. A quick note about this data is that while CPA is up across the board this is partly due to seasonality for a few major…

• Grow Your Account With YouTube Advertising

  Sam Owen

  21 May 2013 | 1:01 pm

  There’s money to be had on the Internet and we want all of it. In this month’s series, PPC Hero will be talking about ways to grow your account to increase its reach while maximizing profits. We can’t have it all, but we can try and try to get ever more of it.  –   What if your brand and Gangnam Style could become one? No I’m not talking about some sort of k-pop extravaganza in your office, but rather the wealth of opportunity available to you on YouTube. As Google loves to point out, YouTube is the world’s second biggest search engine with more than one…

• Watch an Enhanced Campaigns Migration Live – Free Webinar!

  Mark Casey

  21 May 2013 | 2:01 am

  We’re all visual learners to some extent, and that’s exactly why we’re so excited to be able to present a LIVE Enhanced Campaigns migration as this week’s webinar. Watch as Hanapin PPC experts Eric Couch and Carrie Albright dig through real AdWords accounts and migrate them to Enhanced Campaigns status in real time. This webinar will cover all of the latest Enhanced Campaigns tips and tricks, including: Is Google’s new Upgrade Center all you need to migrate your account, or is there further customization you need to do? How can you tell whether upgrading your…

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  Search Marketing Sage

• 10 Search-ified Movie Quotes to Celebrate Geek Pride Day

  Kari Rippetoe

  24 May 2013 | 8:50 am

  Tomorrow (May 25th) is International Geek Pride Day, and yes, we here at Search Mojo are search marketing geeks. We’re also geeks about other things, and I personally am a bit of a movie geek. Not quite Quentin Tarantino-level film geekiness, but I particularly love movie quotes. You know those annoying people who recite lines [...]

• 5 SEO Tips For Rebranding Your Website

  Sarah Wyland

  22 May 2013 | 8:14 am

  You have put a lot of time, effort and in some cases, money, into your website and the hard work is paying off – you have a respectable number of site visitors, an ever growing social presence, and your brand ranks high in search results. Life is good. Then, for whatever reason, a rebrand has [...]

• Unfortunately, Sustainable SEO is Slow

  Tad Miller

  20 May 2013 | 5:26 am

  Here's the bad news about those sustainable tactics. They are slow, and seem to be getting slower. The flattening of the algorithm and increased personalization factors of today mean that what could be achieved in 3 months of diligent work might now take 5 or 6 months to achieve.

• Forget Viral Videos – Use YouTube Advertising for Long-Term Success

  Blaine Anderson

  17 May 2013 | 7:09 am

  With Google AdWords for Video, you have the ability to use the videos from your YouTube channel as advertisements. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “We should make a viral video!” If that’s what your goals are, then I can’t help you. The concept of viral videos could be a whole blog post in itself, [...]

• 4 Quick Ways to Optimize Your PPC Account

  Heidi Kramer

  16 May 2013 | 6:05 am

  If you’re new to search engine marketing or don’t have a lot of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising experience under your belt, you may not know where to start once your PPC account is up and running. There are a few key tasks you can routinely add to your To Do List to optimize your account that [...]

• 

  G-SEO Community

• The Best Ways to Attract Quality Traffic to Your Website

  RyanHolman

  16 May 2013 | 10:27 am

  There are so many online businesses and one would expect all of them to be earning a profit. However, this is not the case, as majority of online businesses are unaware how to attract quality traffic to their websites. The quality of visitors is important, as without targeted visitors, who are interested in what you are selling or offering, you will not be able to achieve much. All of these fallacies can hurt a business badly. It is imperative that an online business knows the art of attracting the right set of visitors. Here are some great tips to attract quality visitors to your website and…

• How Online Contests, Sweepstakes and Giveaways Drive Traffic

  Josh Nadeau

  7 May 2013 | 12:40 pm

  You’ve done everything right from the start — developed a solid business plan, secured website hosting in the cloud and even created a Facebook page. Now that, you’ve created a social-networking presence, use the right marketing tools to drive traffic to your site and establish a strong presence in the social marketplace. People love free, so one effective tool is to host online contests and giveaways. “Win” and “Prize” are buzz words that capture people’s attention, drawing them to your e-commerce site and blog. Subsequently you “Win”…

• Relevant vs. Irrelevant Link Building | How Linking Strategies Influence Internet Usability

  Clay Christeson

  2 May 2013 | 9:17 am

  The internet is a giant network of information constructed of links. Just as a house is built more soundly with higher quality materials, the World Wide Web is fundamentally similar. The network as a whole makes more sense and has much higher efficiency when quality links are present. Individual webmasters and businesses around the world, along with specialized SEO firms, use link building as a strategy to optimize certain content and increase search engine visibility. Like any other benefit-reaping strategy, some people take advantage of the system. This is called irrelevant link building.

• Magento Ecommerce Support Services for Optimizing Your Website

  Josh Nadeau

  29 Apr 2013 | 11:33 am

  Magento ecommerce provides a great web application that is frequently used in websites today. It is a free source application or open source application which came into existence on March 31, 2008. Now, there are different types of support and assistance that are rendered by Magento programmers and the development team. Magento is mostly used for storing data and the entity attribute value is implemented for this app. It is basically a set of e-commerce modules that can be tailored according to your e-commerce needs. You will need support when you are thinking about using the app for your…

• Becoming An Entrepreneur | 4 Lessons Learned From ‘Shark Tank’

  Josh Nadeau

  18 Apr 2013 | 11:41 am

  ABC’s “Shark Tank,” a reality TV show on becoming an entrepreneur featuring famous investors like Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban who hear out individuals looking for money for their business, is quickly becoming one of the most popular reality shows in primetime. According to Cable.tv, tenured competition shows like “Survivor” and “Amazing Race” still hold the top spots in the ratings, but business and career competition shows such as “Apprentice” and “Shark Tank” are rising fast. It’s not all just fun and games,…

• 

  Location3 Media

• Discover New Upper Funnel Keywords in Google AdWords

  Samantha Bedford

  21 May 2013 | 12:51 pm

  We wanted to highlight a great report center and columns in Google AdWords that can help show the value of “upper-funnel” keywords. This report has been in the AdWords interface since 2010 – only hidden! Google recently moved it front and center through the use of custom columns. What is it?  A stand-alone report center and customized columns in the AdWords interface that shows you the entire Google AdWords search path leading up to a conversion. The path includes clicks and impressions. This report further reinforces the concept that searchers often search on multiple keywords before…

• The Future of Online Video Advertising

  Alex Porter

  16 May 2013 | 12:29 pm

  Brands certainly aren’t required to shift traditional television advertising dollars to integrated digital video campaigns. But what do they stand to lose by ignoring this major shift in how people consume media? According to new research by eMarketer, “What’s at stake here is money—a lot of money.” Figure courtesy of eMarketer This research estimates that US digital video ad spending will nearly double in four years, climbing from $4.14 billion this year to $8.04 billion in 2016. Why the increase in investment? Studies are showing remarkable results when campaigns…

• Location3 Ski Day Becomes Visual Content

  Lucia Novara

  15 May 2013 | 1:22 pm

  Despite our rapid growth, Location3 is hanging on tight to our annual Ski Day tradition. The bus to Arapahoe Basin keeps getting bigger, the party at “The A-Bay Beach” keeps getting rowdier and the BBQ lunch order keeps getting more absurd. It’s a day all the veterans look forward to as an excuse to remember why we live in Colorado, and a festive way to initiate the newbies into our “work hard, play hard” culture. Amazing IT Guru/Unofficial Event Photographer Stu Lounsbury got some great shots again this year, and I decided to use them to try out a new picture…

• Pack Your Bags for FranCamp 2013

  Anne Baum

  10 May 2013 | 3:04 pm

  FranCamp, the IFA’s Digital Marketing & Technology Best Practices Conference is taking place May 14th-15th at the Loews Atlanta Hotel.  The conference is designed to help marketing, communications and information technology franchise professionals navigate the maze of digital marketing and technology solutions available to franchises today. Featured experts will examine how franchise professionals can capitalize on new digital communications platforms and technologies to take their business to the next level. Representing Location3 Media at FranCamp will be Business Development…

• Location3 Donates Video for Ronald McDonald House Gala

  Deborah

  8 May 2013 | 2:07 pm

  The Location3 team went behind the lens to support this year’s Ronald McDonald House® Charities of Denver Gala with a pro bono video in support of the cause. The break room buzz here in Denver last Monday signaled a good time was had by all. The video kicked off the fundraising portion of this Kentucky Derby themed-party packed with hat toting ladies and well-suited gents. Rumor has it, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house after the lights dimmed and the credits rolled. Location3 video producer Alex Yorchak was tasked with creating a piece that went beyond the basics to show the real…

• 

  Search Engine Marketing Blog

• It’s a Blog Eat Blog World

  Emarketed

  25 May 2013 | 10:01 am

  In the competitive world of blogging, writing strategies have to adapt to make sure that they’re up to par with the current state of SEO. If you’ve been writing the same way for years while ignoring the state of search marketing and blogging best practices, it’s time to STOP! An important aspect of content creation [...]

• 10 Ways to Increase Your Website’s Credibility

  Emarketed

  21 May 2013 | 7:53 pm

  Building websites and trustworthy relationships with customers should go hand in hand. But over time, this aspect of credibility can fall by the wayside. Scrutinizing rankings and traffic might make you forget the human side of your business and brand. Nowadays, earning a customer’s trust isn’t easy, but working towards that goal is always a [...]

• 5 Ways to Make Your Blog Better

  Emarketed

  18 May 2013 | 3:02 pm

  Blogging and other forms of content creation doesn’t always come easily. It’s hard enough when writer’s block attacks and your posts feel a dry spell. Besides consistently and actively trying to create quality content, there are some other technical aspects of blogging that you should also keep in mind: 1) Optimize for Mobile Devices: Mobile [...]

• Nostalgia and Yearning for Websites of the Past

  Emarketed

  17 May 2013 | 12:39 pm

  “Retro”, “vintage” and “antique” are some words that describe the nostalgia we often get about reminiscing about familiar things in our past. But yearning for the past can also bring up some other not-so-flattering terms, such as “tacky”, “outdated” and “old”. “Everything old is new again” This pretty much accurately sums up the history of [...]

• Time for Your Semi-Annual Website Audit

  Emarketed

  16 May 2013 | 8:49 pm

  Dreading today’s trip to the dentist has lead me to thinking about one thing: what do dental appointments and website audits have in common? They’re both something you should get done at least twice a year! If it’s something that you’ve been putting off, it should be even more of a motivation to make things [...]

• 

  Daily SEO Tip

• What Other Marketing Firms Want You To Believe – That Isn’t True

  DST Contributor

  24 May 2013 | 10:02 am

  Have You Ever Wondered How Others Really Rank High For Keywords Quickly And Claim White Hat? My name is Matthew Boley and I would like to talk about what to look for when you’re talking to an SEO expert and the tactics working right now. How many times have you heard, content is king, content is everything, make sure you have your alt tags right, make sure your on-page SEO is perfect or you won’t rank. I have also heard “make sure you don’t have duplicate content on your site or it’s just not possible to rank, because you will get penalized so bad you won’t rank good at all”.

• Digital Marketing Trends for 2013

  Tanya

  16 May 2013 | 6:00 am

  In the year 2013, marketers are looking forward to increase their digital marketing activity. And through the use of information gathered in the past year, there are hoping to make their mark on the online world with the use of these interesting marketing trends. Mobile Marketing As per 2012, the global traffic of internet by people via mobile has gone to 13%. This means they are sorting other different means of going online other than the traditional way which is using the PC. So now marketing strategist are increasing their efforts to be able to advertise to their mobile customers whether…

• Survival Guide to Multilingual SEO

  DST Contributor

  14 May 2013 | 6:00 am

  The following survival guide to multilingual SEO will take you through the 3 key stages of tactical international SEO implementation, complete with tried and tested first-hand experience in what really works. I will introduce some of the great tools available (some free) that allow you to research and implement your own international SEO strategy. Although I advise professional management in certain parts, much of the investigative work and conceptualization can be done by yourself, making the process cheaper and giving you control over the scope and direction of the project.Let’s get…

• Five Killer Link Bait Tips That Can Provide You With ‘Passive Marketing’

  DST Contributor

  11 May 2013 | 5:18 pm

  When it comes to powerful SEO techniques, there are few that are more effective than link baiting. The idea behind link baiting is that you don’t try to force Google to recognize your site by building tons of links yourself and working for hours, but rather write your content in such a way that your visitors do that for you. The idea is that you write articles that will be so catchy and so interesting that people will spot them immediately and then want to share them with their friends as soon as they’ve read them. Here we will look at what you need to create such effective…

• 5 US SEO Events to Visit to Spend a One Month Vacation with Purpose

  DST Contributor

  9 May 2013 | 5:07 pm

  It may be a part of the “new world,” but the United States has grown to become one of the most dominant and fascinating countries on Earth, making it a treat to explore for Americans and those from abroad alike. With countless vacation spots and business opportunities existing simultaneously around this great nation, turning your vacation into a work-friendly endeavor is as easy as pie! Combine work and play in a way that lets you enjoy life, even while you push forward through its economic complexities; here are five U.S. SEO events to visit in order to take a one month vacation…

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  Online Marketing Blog

• Online Marketing News: Biggr Flickr, Kmart Strikes Again, Yahoo Takes A Tumblr, Twitter Cards, Penguin 2 & SEO FUD

  Lee Odden

  24 May 2013 | 4:02 am

  Kmart is at it again with a clever follow up to their highly popular video “Ship My Pants” that has had over 17 million views. The play on words this time is “Big Gas Savings” with over 1 million views in 2 days. Like the Old Spice videos that went ballistic, the question remains: They’re very creative and popular, but will these videos get shoppers in stores and buying at Kmart? Flickr is Biggr. Users now get 1 terabyte of storage. I’ve been a pro Flickr user for many years and during Yahoo’s pre Marissa Mayer days, it had an uncertain future. Now…

• In Search of Voodoo: Empathize to Optimize Your Customer’s Journey on the Search & Social Web

  Lee Odden

  23 May 2013 | 4:06 am

  I get to meet a lot of professionals in the marketing, advertising, communications and public relations industries where topics of conversation often revolve around content. Concerns about where to start, what tactics work best, how to plan, produce and promote all come into play right along with staffing, integration with other channels and measurement. Of course, if you try hard enough you can worry yourself out of a job when it comes to developing a solid approach with content marketing. On the one hand, there’s a temptation to spend a lot of time and resources developing “the…

• 7 Steps to SEO at Scale: How to Ramp Up Your Search Engine Optimization Strategy

  Miranda Miller

  22 May 2013 | 4:00 am

  comScore reports that in April 2013 there were over 20 billion search queries and of the 13 billion+ handled by Google, 16% of daily searches have never been seen before.  Each of those attempts represents buyers looking for solutions at the moment of need. Online marketers that take advantage of modern, scalable search engine optimization best practices as part of their overall digital marketing mix can gain a significant advantage over competitors to become “the best answer” when it matters most. Understanding the basics of search engine optimization can be challenging given…

• Top 5 Social Media Questions Marketers Want Answered

  Lee Odden

  21 May 2013 | 7:08 am

  What if you could tap into the minds of 3,000 marketers to find out where they stand when it comes to social media marketing? How valuable would it be to know how your peers are handing the time commitments, social media platforms and measurement? Lucky you and lucky me, the answers to those questions are found in today’s 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Michael Stelzner and Social Media Examiner. A few of this year’s social media statistics: 86% of marketers say social media is important for their business 69% plan to increase their use of YouTube 58% of…

• Integrating Digital Marketing & PR – Breaking Down Silos Through Content

  Lee Odden

  20 May 2013 | 5:11 am

  For a recent presentation at a corporate communications and PR conference, I polled my network of digital marketing and PR pros working client-side about the most pressing questions they’re dealing with when it comes to integrating Marketing and Public Relations. Since we’ve been working in the digital marketing and PR space at TopRank Marketing for well over 10 years, it was interesting to see  the diverse feedback from companies of various sizes and industries. But several themes revealed themselves that I think our readers will relate to. Thanks to feedback from Digital and…

• 

  aimClear® Blog

• Zenith Social Media Conference! Behind The Scenes With Joanna Lord, Keynoter

  Lauren Litwinka

  22 May 2013 | 8:54 am

  Joanna Lord. What can you say about her? She’s pretty much one of the smartest, sweetest, sassiest gals this side of the Interwebz. Currently serving as CMO of BigDoor, a Seattle startup, her résumé also includes things like independent consultant, entrepreneur, innovator, creator, analyzer, coffee enthusiast (that’s putting it mildly), and borderline insomniac (perhaps attributable to the previous line-item). She’s steeped in the full spectrum of digital marketing, from PPC to SEO, PR to Social, and everything in between. Toldja. Smart. The city of Duluth is jazzed to…

• How to Spot an Old School PR Agency

  Lindsay Schleisman

  21 May 2013 | 10:26 am

  aimClear has long embraced an online marketing model in which public relations is a core component. Among our staff of 22, 6 have deep experience in public relations. If the value PR brings to online marketing is not painfully obvious by now, you haven’t been paying attention. The opposite is also true. Online marketing tactics add so many facets to public relations programs that, frankly, agencies that aren’t implementing them are dating themselves and limiting the effectiveness of the campaigns they undertake. Reading the PR trades, you get a distinct sense that there are two breeds of…

• SEO Link Building ALERT! Paid-Organic Social Content Distribution Is The Future

  Marty Weintraub

  20 May 2013 | 4:46 am

  In case you haven’t noticed the SEO buzz kill, it’s practically Armageddon out there, at least  for some last gen marketers. For SEO practitioners who don’t know what they’re doing anymore 2013 SEO is brutal man, just brutal.  Google’s veritable Jihad against link spammers and outdated link building tactics is finally working to a greater extent. Search engines in general are building better bullsh*t detectors than ever before. Search engine results pages mirror the real world more now and real brands have real advantages.  Marketers can complain all they want…

• Bookmark It! Handy #Facebook Partner Categories Visual Guide

  Merry Morud

  15 May 2013 | 12:58 pm

  Reason number 87 we love Facebook’s Power Editor: It’s the source to access the latest, greatest targeting options… Facebook Partner Categories! The release and excitement of Facebook’s Partner Category targeting, Datalogix, Acxiom, and Epsilon, has been widely covered. Here, we’re laying out the new Facebook targeting visually because: 1) It’s been requested, and 2) Seeing the category targeting laid out is downright HANDY for Facebook advertisers. It makes choosing the targeting much easier than with Facebook’s threaded drop-down within Power…

• @TheEllenShow! 17 Incredibly Beautiful Ways Duluth, MN LOVES Ellen DeGeneres

  Marty Weintraub

  14 May 2013 | 8:38 am

  In Pilates class last week, our accomplished instructor Karen shared that she had some SRSLY awesome photos and wanted to share them in social media. It seems that when Ellen DeGeneres announced her underwear photo contest, Karen was disappointed that women were not included. Karen suggested to a few close friends that they should have their own Ellen underwear photo shoot to demonstrate that women everywhere should be proud of their bodies regardless of their age, shape or size.  Sixteen of her fabulous, fit friends were up for the challenge.  This amazing group of ladies range in age from…

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  Branded3

• Social Media Round-up: Twitter shows us its cards and Pinterest goes big

  Georgia Halston

  24 May 2013 | 10:04 am

  The social scene was busy across the board this week with buyouts, upgrades, new functions and even a chance for a little social media flutter. Here’s our round-up of the social highlights from the last 7 days: Yahoo! buys Tumblr Details –  Interactive blog platform Tumblr has been bought out by multi facated web giant Yahoo! What does this mean? – There is a lot behind the move in terms of revenue for Yahooo! You can read more about the acquisition in our full blog post from Tuesday.   Ladbrokes gives odds on the next Yahoo! buy out Details –  In a toungue in cheek entry, UK…

• Donate now! We’re running the #Leeds10k for the Jane Tomlinson Appeal

  Felicity Crouch

  24 May 2013 | 4:16 am

  That’s right; those of us brave enough in B3 Towers are taking on the challenge of the Leeds 10k on Sunday 14th July to raise money for a local cause, the Jane Tomlinson Appeal. We love a good challenge here and with just seven weeks to go until the big day; we’re getting healthy at the office and donning our running shoes. Nineteen members of the team have signed up to the run so far, and with your support and donations; you could spur us on to complete the full 10k. Plus, your money will go towards a fantastic cause. The Jane Tomlinson Appeal was set up by the late amateur athlete and…

• Early thoughts on Penguin 2.0

  Tim Grice

  23 May 2013 | 8:11 am

  So the web spam team at Google have finally pulled their finger out and unleashed a world of hurt on link spammers with Penguin 2.0. I was in two minds when thinking about putting this post together, a) because it’s too early to fully understand the impact, and b) I didn’t want to regurgitate the same thing as everybody else out there. If you have been living on a desert island for the past two years and know nothing about Penguin, you can read up on it here and here. The main takeaways: 1 – The new version of Penguin is more aggressive 2 – It targets lower level pages of a site and…

• 5 myths about manual penalty recovery

  Emma Barnes

  22 May 2013 | 8:43 am

  Have you ever seen this message in your Google webmaster tools? If you have, you’ll know about the panic that ensues. Maybe you know you’ve done some link-building in the past that’s outside of Google’s guidelines, or perhaps you hired an SEO firm which wasn’t honest with their link-building tactics. Either way, these links have to come down. In the last six months we’ve helped over 40 clients recover from manual spam actions. In that time, I’ve read a lot of literature about the process. The amount of posts about this process might be overwhelming…

• Google gets more aggressive with link devaluation

  Patrick Altoft

  22 May 2013 | 2:47 am

  We’ve talked before about link devaluation and from what we can see the pattern is still going strong five months later. Pretty much every week since the end of November, Google has devalued large numbers of links of one type or another resulting in brands losing positions gradually week after week for months. One of the biggest devaluations Google has done was last week, shortly after Matt Cutts tweeted about taking action on a major link seller network. In fact, we took action on several thousand linksellers in a paid-link-that-passes-PageRank network earlier today. — Matt Cutts…

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  Conversation Marketing from Portent, Inc: Internet Marketing with a Twist of Lemon

• Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Keywords

  Timothy Johnson

  24 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  In charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. We’re in week three of our six-part blog series in which Portent PPC StrategistsChad KearnsandTim Johnson lay down the knowledge on best practices for achieving PPC success. Follow along to pick up tips on how to build your first PPC account like a PPC superstar. Post #1: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Account Structure Post #2: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Understanding your Campaign Settings If the account structure is the backbone of…

• Meet the PPC Team (Star Trek: TNG Style)

  Ryan Moothart

  23 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  Here at Portent, we have many Internet marketing teams: SEO, content, and design, just to name a few. But the best team, objectively speaking*, is the PPC team. *This is completely subjective as I am a member of the PPC team.  That does not mean what I say is not the truth. We are a special bunch that takes great pride in our work as individuals and as a team.  We geek out on data, we go beyond paid search management and develop strategies to ensure our clients kick everyone else’s ass, and we can pass the AdWords certification tests in our sleep.  But that’s not all. We also have a…

• How Google Ruined Marketing

  Ian Lurie

  21 May 2013 | 4:31 pm

  Marketing wasn’t supposed to be a zero-sum game. Your competitor bought a TV commercial, you bought a TV commercial. They bought radio time, you bought radio time. Even if they bought every available second of radio time on one station, you could buy time on another, or go to a completely different medium. That promoted two good things: Creativity in advertising. Creativity entertains consumers and forces brands to take a hard look at themselves every few months. This inspires a kind of corporate self-awareness that keeps the best consumer and business brands sharp. Great products.

• Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Understand your Campaign Settings

  Chad Kearns

  17 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  In charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. Over the course of the next six weeks, Portent PPC Strategists Chad Kearns and Tim Johnson will be laying down the knowledge in a six-part blog series detailing best practices for setting yourself up for PPC success. Follow along to pick up tips on how to build your first PPC account like a PPC superstar. Post #1: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Account Structure During campaign creation, AdWords provides a number of settings to tailor a campaign to…

• Manage Stuff, Lead People: How to Turn Workers into Leaders

  Steve Gahler

  16 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  We’ve all seen it happen. An employee is doing killer work, initiating great ideas, and displaying a willingness to take on larger projects. The employee is quickly promoted to a manager position. But while this top employee has excelled at the tactical parts of the job, he or she has never managed a team before. Letting these employees just sink or swim will be chaos – for you, the new manager, and for his or her team. For growing companies like Portent, it’s important to guide even the smartest, hardest working employees as they transition into management roles. As president, my role…

• 

  HubSpot's Inbound Marketing Blog

• How to Host a Facebook Chat

  24 May 2013 | 11:00 am

  When Facebook rolled out the ability to reply to comments on Facebook, my immediate reaction was ... indifferent. Actually, I thought it was more likely it would complicate conversations and give spammers additional ways to pollute comment sections. But then I changed my tune when I saw the potential for a fun marketing activity -- Facebook Chats! Similar to a Twitter Chat, a Facebook Chat is a scheduled time to, well, "chat" with a group of people about a particular topic on Facebook. With the introduction of the new Facebook reply feature, users could actually have conversations in the…

• The Most Magical Moments From the Arrested Development Launch Campaign

  24 May 2013 | 6:01 am

  If you had to market a final season premiere of a TV cult classic that wouldn't appear on television, how would you do it? With billboards, print ads, and primetime slots on TV? Probably not. You’d have to buckle down and get creative to reach such a niche, digital audience. Well, that’s exactly what Arrested Development did. After Netflix brought the show back to life for a final season that would only be available through the Netflix streaming service, the show launched one of the most creative integrated inbound marketing campaigns we’ve ever seen, using content across…

• What a Real Relationship in Social Media Should Look Like [INFOGRAPHIC]

  23 May 2013 | 1:00 pm

  The promise of social media was once "one-to-one engagement" and "relationship building" ... but somehow "building a relationship" in social media has morphed into blasting messages at as many people as possible and hoping someone is attracted. How the heck did this happen? In the "offline" world, the "spray and pray" approach never works. Imagine if Romeo went up to Juliet at that first party and just started shouting why he was perfect for her and that they needed to get married before it was too late. What if Gatsby blasted Daisy’s house with letter after letter about how…

• What the Future Holds for Business Blogging

  23 May 2013 | 9:30 am

  Lately, the whole marketing community is abuzz about content. And rightfully so. Content is a necessity for any successful inbound marketing strategy, and with more and more marketers creating it, it's becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the barrage of content out there -- a lot of which is, well .... subpar (to put it nicely).  If you haven't yet flipped through Velocity Partners' SlideShare deck, "Crap. The Content Marketing Deluge," it's definitely worth a look (we've embedded it below). It's no wonder the 2013 State of Inbound Marketing report revealed…

• Where Do Marketers Get Customers? [Data]

  23 May 2013 | 6:00 am

  Time and time again, we get asked for benchmark data, particularly about customer generation. Well, you may remember we recently launched our 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Research Report, and we used the mounds of research there to try to, you know, "give the people what they want." And the people want benchmark data. I broke down survey responses about customer generation through the lense of simple demographic information -- B2B versus B2C, industry, company size, and company location. If you don't see your business type or industry represented below, though, let us know -- we did our…

• 

  Local SEO Guide

• Why You Should Be Open With Your Business’ Meta Data

  Andrew Shotland

  22 May 2013 | 12:17 pm

  Yesterday I talked about my initial thoughts on Google’s new Local Business Data Highlighter.  Tyler Bell of Factual was quick to point out an important point: [View the story "Cheeky Google" on Storify] If you want to have the best chance of ranking for local queries in Google, you should definitely use the tools they [...]The post Why You Should Be Open With Your Business’ Meta Data appeared first on Local SEO Guide.

• How To Use Google’s Local Business Data Highlighter…So Far

  Andrew Shotland

  21 May 2013 | 12:28 pm

  Google’s new Data Highlighter for Local Businesses is definitely worth checking out for anyone trying to goose their local rankings.  I have found it to be a bit buggy and it’s a new tool, so proceed with caution.  Here are some basics on how to use it along with some tricks I have figured out [...]The post How To Use Google’s Local Business Data Highlighter…So Far appeared first on Local SEO Guide.

• Google Alerts Tip – Works Better If You Have a Time Machine

  Andrew Shotland

  10 May 2013 | 9:40 am

  And in other breaking CitySearch news, Darren Waddell of RadiusIntel just sent me this awesome Google Alert he received this morning: It links to this article from 2007. For all of you marketers recommending that your clients use Google Alerts to monitor what people are saying, be sure to include that it works better if [...]The post Google Alerts Tip – Works Better If You Have a Time Machine appeared first on Local SEO Guide.

• What Happened To CitySearch’s Business?

  Andrew Shotland

  9 May 2013 | 2:52 pm

  Today Greg Sterling asked What’s Going On At CityGrid?: “Here’s my paraphrase of some of the things I was told: CityGrid and Citysearch are struggling (to retain and deliver value to advertisers) Citysearch was characterized to me as having lost so much momentum that it was effectively “dead” CityGrid and associated properties (InsiderPages, Citysearch, Urbanspoon) [...]The post What Happened To CitySearch’s Business? appeared first on Local SEO Guide.

• Yext Sync for Facebook: Is Every Product Destined To Become a Feature?

  Andrew Shotland

  2 May 2013 | 8:36 am

  Today Yext announced Sync, a service that lets you sync a business’ location data to Facebook along with “enhanced” data such as menus, offers, photos and status updates.  While there are plenty of social media management tools that allow you to control content on a Facebook Page,  the two big differences with Yext’s service are [...]The post Yext Sync for Facebook: Is Every Product Destined To Become a Feature? appeared first on Local SEO Guide.

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  Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

• Excellent Analytics Tip #24: Obsess About Real Business Profitability

  Avinash Kaushik

  20 May 2013 | 3:05 am

  The art of analysis often fails to deliver ginarmous success simply because of how limited our worldview is when we go about identifying bottom-line impacting insights. Hence, this is a post on a simple concept that will drag you out of your current "what is happening on my website?" comfort zone, and out of your Google Analytics, Site Catalyst, WebTrends worldview silo. Sounds like fun? It is. And you end up becoming rich and famous. Not too shabby, right? Macro Business Context: The Big Deal Digital is an obsession for almost everyone who reads this blog. Part of the reason is…

• Eight Silly Data Myths Marketing People Believe That Get Them Fired.

  Avinash Kaushik

  29 Apr 2013 | 2:40 am

  It turns out that Marketers, especially Digital Marketers, make really silly mistakes when it comes to data. Big data. Small data. Any data. In the last couple months I've spent a lot of time with senior level marketers on three different continents. Some of them are quite successful, but sadly many of them were not. In the latter group I discovered two common themes: 1 Some absolutely did not use data to do their digital jobs. This group should be fired immediately, so I'm not going to talk about them. [A benchmark for you: If you are not spending 30% of your time in 2013 with…

• The Lean Analytics Cycle: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act

  Avinash Kaushik

  8 Apr 2013 | 2:17 am

  This should not be news to you. To win in business you need to follow this process: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act. Online, offline or nonline. Yet this structure rarely exists in companies. We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago. Sometimes, we escape the clutches of this sub optimal existence and do pick good metrics or engage in simple A/B testing. But it is not routine. So, how do we fix this problem? This thought was in my mind as I was…

• Excellent Analytics Tip #23: Align Hits, Sessions, Metrics, Dimensions!

  Avinash Kaushik

  18 Mar 2013 | 2:24 am

  Web Analytics tools have become pretty feature rich, and the future promises to bring even more goodies (Universal Analytics anyone?). But these features bring with them new problems that we hadn't imagined before. Mostly because the limitations in the tools meant we were unable to make these mistakes. Today's post is about a new problem I'm starting to notice, which only exists because our tools have become so much cooler and handed us so much power: constant mismatching of hit- and session-level metrics and dimensions. This particular problem exists primarily because…

• Excellent Analytics Tip #22: Calculate Return On Analytics Investment!

  Avinash Kaushik

  25 Feb 2013 | 2:02 am

  Analysts: Put up or shut up time! This blog is centered around creating incredible digital experiences powered by qualitative and quantitative data insights. Every post is about unleashing the power of digital analytics (the potent combination of data, systems, software and people). But we've never stopped to consider this question: What is the return on investment (ROI) of digital analytics? What is the incremental revenue impact on the company's bottom-line for the investment in data, systems and people? Isn't it amazing? We've not pointed the sexy arrow of…

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  Posts from the Econsultancy blog

• Q&A: 72andSunny creative director: 'make fewer things and make them great'

  Ryan Sommer

  24 May 2013 | 9:01 am

  As creative director for LA-based agency 72andSunny and a recent New York transplant, Peter Novosel has a lot on his plate right now ahead of #IMW13. Even still, Pete took the time to answer some questions around integration, social media and search. Thanks Pete and see you in June!What are you speaking on at Integrated Marketing Week? Getting integrated campaigns across the line with client partners and how big a part educating them plays in that process. When it comes to "big data" in marketing, where do you draw a line in the sand as far as a definition, or size of campaign? In the…

• This week's finest digital marketing infographic

  David Moth

  24 May 2013 | 4:35 am

  It’s Friday and that means it’s time for us to trawl our inboxes to pluck out the finest infographic we’ve seen this week. This time around the winner is Monetate with a graphic that looks at traveller preferences to determine the best times during the booking process to offer upsells and cross-sells.   For example, 45% of people who book hotels online say that they'd prefer to receive ancillary offers after choosing their hotel, but prior to booking. Ecommerce plays a major role in allowing consumers to both research and make travel purchases, with as much as 75% of holiday planning…

• The state of the digital jobs market

  Sarah Barry

  24 May 2013 | 3:31 am

  A little while ago, we held a quick poll of our Twitter followers to gain some insight into the state of the digital jobs market. Here are our findings...To be honest, there were some pretty mixed responses. But there were a few points that seemed to ring true for a big portion of respondents and that’s what I’ve focused on here. The key point was the increase in specialisms, where a quarter of respondents stated they saw the job market moving closer towards more focused roles. This could be the result of a maturing industry, where more sophisticated digital strategies require people with…

• 10 interesting digital marketing stats we've seen this week

  David Moth

  24 May 2013 | 2:53 am

  Here are some of the most interesting digital marketing stats we've seen this week. Stats include social advertising in the alcohol industry, a drop in Facebook usage, consumer loyalty, barriers to mobile payment adoption and Google News. For more digital marketing stats, check out our Internet Statistics Compendium.Budweiser is king of social advertising in Q1 Budweiser proved to be the king of alcohol advertising in Q1 by achieving more than half of the industry's total social shares. The beer company’s 'Brotherhood' ad was shared 2.4 million times compared to 970,000 for little-known…

• How to run a successful multichannel social media promotion

  Katya Constantine

  24 May 2013 | 2:36 am

  Trick question: if you run a Twitter campaign that directs a customer to your Facebook page and they click through to your site, how many channels did you use? In this day and age, running social media promotions can be overwhelming. There are large and highly engaged audiences on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google +, LinkedIn, YouTube - and that’s just the social sites we hear about daily. As a business, it can be challenging to figure out the what, the where, and the how of doing a multichannel social media promotion.   I’d like to address what it takes to be successful at…

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  Fathom

• Marketing Automation Tips: Segmenting Your Customer Database

  Jenni Ramminger

  24 May 2013 | 11:26 am

  Did you know that targeted email programs have been proven to reduce advertising costs and increase ROI percentages to as much as 3000%? Sophisticated segmentation sounds intimidating. And in the past, it may have been, though most marketers can agree segmentation almost always drives better results.  The art of splicing and dicing your database, creating messages for each target group, and making sense of all the “big data” is a big job.  But, with the help of marketing automation tools like Marketo or Act-on, the segmentation game has changed for the better.… Read the restThe…

• Healthcare Blog Dilemma Part 1: Beating Blogger’s Block

  Haley Hite

  23 May 2013 | 9:19 am

  Are you dealing with blogger’s block? You know – the blogger’s form of writer’s block? It’s the kind of dilemma where your brain feels like mush and you’ve run out of engaging ideas. Whatever you do, don’t cop out. Having relevant, fresh content on your blog is crucial to its success. Among 37 percent of marketers, blog posts are the most valuable type of content for marketing. If you run out of ideas and stop updating your blog (or skip having one altogether), you’re missing out on increased visibility and wider reach, which are two important aspects of your online…

• Healthcare Marketing Stats To Ponder, Plus 100 Leaders

  Paul Richlovsky

  23 May 2013 | 3:18 am

  Some new stats came out recently about how healthcare consumers use mobile health apps and navigate the Web for health-related information. Both sets of numbers are telling in how they illustrate consumer tendencies toward using technology and the specific kinds of websites they go to for tracking and finding health information. Consumer Preferences in Mobile Health Apps First, let’s look at mobile: A new Ruder Finn “mHealth Report” (PDF) shows 49% of U.S. consumers who use mobile health apps say they use one for healthy eating.… Read the restThe post Healthcare…

• Understanding How Patients Use Search

  Melissa Mathews

  22 May 2013 | 6:58 am

  How are your current and prospective patients using online search to find your healthcare organization? As PEW Internet Research found earlier this year, online search is one of the first places patients start looking for health information. In fact, 8 in 10 online health inquiries start at a search engine. While search engines are the foundation for many patients’ health research, the use of search continues throughout the patient relationship with the organization, from research to scheduling an appointment to becoming a returning patient and brand advocate.… Read the restThe post…

• Why Jargon Could Be Your Worst Enemy

  Caroline Bogart

  21 May 2013 | 6:30 am

  Copywriters, marketers and brand ambassadors of the world, listen up. Jargon might just be your worst enemy. We think using industry terminology or jargon makes us look smarter, but sometimes it can have completely opposite effects and make even the most well-written piece ineffective. In fact, Merriam-Webster defines jargon as “confused, unintelligible language.” Even the dictionary isn’t too keen on it! But there are other reasons why using too much jargon can backfire. Not everyone knows what you’re talking about: Even if you’re dealing with highly technical subject matter, not…

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  Fuel Interactive Blog

• Friday Fuel: Pizza Friday; Yahoo Takes a Tumbl (Literally); Big Gas Savings; & More

  nick@fuelinteractive.com

  24 May 2013 | 7:59 am

• Sports and Social Media: What You Can Learn from the UFC’s Social Media Strategy

  nick@fuelinteractive.com

  22 May 2013 | 12:02 pm

  We take a look into how Dana White, the co-owner and president of The Ultimate Fighting Championship, took his company from niche sport with limited exposure and nearly bankrupt in 2002, to a global phenomenon in 2013, by building his brand and engaging fans online in ways that other sports don't.

• Friday Fuel: Changes to Google+, Awesome 404 Pages, #NSD2013 & more!

  nick@fuelinteractive.com

  17 May 2013 | 1:59 am

• Awesome Apps for Productivity

  nick@fuelinteractive.com

  10 May 2013 | 10:59 am

• Friday Fuel: Diversify Guest Blogs, Maps Update, Paid YouTube, lrn2searchn00b & more!

  nick@fuelinteractive.com

  10 May 2013 | 7:43 am

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  Hobo

• Website Lost Rankings in Google? Say Hello to Penguin 2.

  Shaun Anderson

  23 May 2013 | 7:25 am

  We started rolling out the next generation of the Penguin webspam algorithm this afternoon (May 22, 2013), and the rollout is now complete. About 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice. The change has also finished rolling out for other languages world-wide. The scope of Penguin varies by language, [...]

• How To Put Your Company Logo On Google SERPS

  Shaun Anderson

  15 May 2013 | 6:02 pm

  You can now put your company logo on search results using simple code, placed on the home page of your website: Today, we’re launching support for the schema.org markup for organization logos, a way to connect your site with an iconic image. We want you to be able to specify which image we use as [...]

• Free Rank Checker

  Shaun Anderson

  10 Apr 2013 | 9:26 pm

  This is a simple and fairly accurate online free rank checker tool for Google, Yahoo and Bing – and you can check up to 100 keywords per url for free. I’ve been playing about with it and it is very simple to use. Using this rank checker is very easy and you can track up to [...]

• NEW – Export Up TO 5000 Rows in Google Analytics Dashboard

  Shaun Anderson

  9 Apr 2013 | 8:51 pm

  I’m not sure when this happened – but today at least now you can export up to 5000 rows in Google Analytics dashboard. This is a welcome change, though there have been other ways of doing this in the past (I’ve included this below) How To display and export more than 5000 rows in Google [...]

• Operation: Finding & Removing Unnatural Links

  Shaun Anderson

  1 Apr 2013 | 9:10 pm

  This blog is mostly about seo for genuine small businesses and beginners to seo. Although I have touched on other areas that interest me and not specifically seo, I don’t usually blog about all the algorithm changes Google pushes out that are discussed on other blogs. For that, I follow Search Engine Land, mainly. For [...]

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  Blog - ion interactive - Optimizing Marketing Performance Beyond Landing Pages

• How To: Monitor Your Competitor's PPC Landing Pages

  ion

  23 May 2013 | 5:31 am

  This is a guest post by Jana Fung, Marketing Manager at MixRankIf there’s one thing that online advertising teaches you, it’s how to survive when faced with fierce competition. As an online advertiser, I frequently find myself competing against hundreds if not thousands of advertisers for the same inventory and the same clicks. This is pure performance marketing, where the only things that matter are clicks and conversions. The main difference between clicks and conversions is the clicks are the investment while the conversions are results from a highly optimized…

• Don't do this on your forms!

  Anna Talerico

  20 May 2013 | 6:00 am

  I get an email offering a new report. I want that report. I click the email. I arrive on a standard landing page—image, headline, bullets and a form. Simple enough.I fill out the form. Not so simple. As a user, I am buzzing right along, on my way to complete the form and get that report, but when I get to the industry drop down, I stop dead in my tracks.  This drop down is a lot of work. I have to scroll through a lot of choices to figure out what industry I fit into. Their names for industries isn't the same as my own personal names, so I have to think about this.So, I bet you…

• Iron Mountain: Fueling Big Testing with Big Data

  Mary D'Alatri

  17 May 2013 | 11:40 am

  In 2012, the idea of “big data” was number one on almost every marketers mind. Everyone wanted to know how much data they needed, where they could get it, and where they could put it. For this year, (and even beyond), ion is proposing a new idea, “big testing."Data is phenomenally useful to marketers, but only if they know what to do with it and how to truly learn from it- turning mere hypothesis into marketing gold. This is what testing allows for, proving out your hypothesis into actionable marketing insights. And what’s the payoff? Big experiences. These are experiences that not…

• 7 Landing Page Lessons Learned (Over 7 Years)

  Jessica Collier

  17 May 2013 | 5:59 am

  This week at Interactivity Digital Conference in Miami, Scott presented "Seven Years in Landing Pages." Seven years ago, ion launched its first prototype of a landing page management software. Back then, many asked "what is a landing page?" Today, everyone (should be) creating, testing and optimizing landing page agilely and at a rapid pace. During his talk, Scott shared seven lessons learned from his past seven years in landing pages (or post-click experiences as we like to call them). Brilliant post-click marketing is far more a function of the people wielding the tools then the…

• Targeting Low Funnel Keywords for Increased Conversion and Decreased CPC

  Mary D'Alatri

  16 May 2013 | 9:00 am

  In my previous two posts, I discussed the best types of page layouts to send both high and low funnel keywords to. These were the type of layouts that provided your site visitors with the information they wanted in a format that would resonate with their state of mind. In this post, I’m going to dig deeper into targeting your low funnel keywords. Now that you know the type of page layout to utilize, it’s time to take it step further and start looking at ways to better create your content and messaging. If done properly, this is the most cost effective way to increase your conversions and…

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  Marketing Technology Blog

• Infographic: Marketing Buzzwords from Mashable

  Douglas Karr

  25 May 2013 | 1:21 pm

  The folks at Mashable have put together this infographic on 30 days of Marketing Buzzwords. As a guy who can’t stand marketing speak, I always appreciate when we take a good look at marketing BS. I’ll be honest, though, and admit that I think this infographic just may be full of it. Terms like agile marketing, infographic and gamification aren’t marketing buzzwords, they’re actual terms that every marketer needs to fully understand. And my biggest problem is with the term Return on Investment being listed as a buzzword. ROI isn’t a buzzword… it’s an…

• Penguin 2.0: Four Facts You Should Know

  Jayson DeMers

  24 May 2013 | 6:41 am

  It’s happened. With one blog post, the rollout of an algorithm, and a couple hours of processing, Penguin 2.0 has been unleashed. The Internet will never be the same. Matt Cutts published a brief post on the topic on May 22, 2013. Here are four key points that you should know about Penguin 2.0 1.  Penguin 2.0 affected 2.3% of all English-US queries.  Lest 2.3% sound to you like a smallish number, keep in mind that there are an estimated 5 billion Google searches per day. 2.3% of 5 billion is a lot. A single small business commerce site may depend on 250 different queries for…

• First Touch, Last Touch, Multi-Touch

  Douglas Karr

  23 May 2013 | 12:08 pm

  Analytics is running aground as the the buying methodologies of consumers get more and more complex. I recently spoke at event where I described how most people think about marketing and sales… and our reporting systems really haven’t wandered too far from these scenarios: Most of these systems utilize methodologies of first and last touch: First Touch – what was the first occurence when the prospect was introduced to our brand, product or service that led them down the conversion funnel to become a customer? Last Touch – what was the last occurence when the prospect…

• Infographic: Five Digital Trends Shaking Up Europe

  Douglas Karr

  23 May 2013 | 11:37 am

  Big data, multi-channel, mobile and social media are all impacting online buying behaviors. While this infographic is focused on Europe, the rest of the world isn’t too different. Big data is helping ecommerce providers predict purchase behavior and helping to present product offerings across channels – increasing conversion rates and upselling consumers. A McKinsey iConsumer survey spotlights 5 key digital consumption trends in e-commerce, mobile, multichannel, social media, and big data. The difficult part, of course, isn’t simply how companies utilize big data and how…

• Infographic: The Evolution of Magento

  Douglas Karr

  22 May 2013 | 8:48 am

  Selecting an ecommerce platform is dependent upon a lot of variables. The number of products you’re selling, the customization of those products available, the integration requirements, and the resources for enhancing and improving the platform all play a role. Magento has exploded as the enterprise ecommerce platform of choice because of its flexibility for customization and the huge audience of users developing solutions for and supporting it. We have a Magento Platinum partner we work with, Verge Commerce, who take care of everything from migration, implementation, optimization and…

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  clickTRUE

• Catching Up With Google, Facebook and Yahoo

  Jereme Wong

  29 Apr 2013 | 6:37 pm

  The team at Google Singapore office Exciting big changes came to online marketing in 2013. Google rolled out enhanced campaigns in February – dubbed the “Biggest Change To Adwords” by some (or is it?), Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer continued reinvigorating the internet giant and Facebook upped their game with Custom audience targeting with lookalike audiences. As partners with Google, Facebook and Yahoo, we got a first-hand view of these new frontiers of the digital world. Our partners graciously took time out of busy schedules for these insightful discussion sessions.

• How To Increase The Marketing Effectiveness Of Your Facebook Page

  Jereme Wong

  23 Oct 2012 | 3:59 pm

  Known as the Edgerank Algorithm, Facebook uses several in built calculations to determine who will receive the updates, this is what limits the visibility of your updates. 1. Affinity – which measures the relationship between the viewing user and the creator of the story. The closer the relationship the higher the score. 2. Weight – Different types of posts carry different weights. The higher the weight, the higher the score. 3. Time Decay – As a post ages it continually loses value. On average, research reveals that only 16% of your fans will see you posts on average. So…

• Intern Knows How the Time Flies in clickTRUE

  Yanru

  15 Aug 2012 | 7:37 am

  Time sure flies like an arrow when you enjoy what you are doing. But fruit flies like a banana? It took me a while to understand the word play in that sentence when I saw it for the first time. It is the same thing for me when meeting new people. I like to take my time observing them before opening myself up. But I only have 10 weeks here so I cannot possibly take 1 month to observe and get to know my colleagues slowly. Therefore, I tried to be more vocal and hoped that I would be able to bond with them quickly. Luckily, they were all friendly and fun-loving people so I was able to adapt the…

• How to Choose a Competent Digital Marketing Agency

  Ming Yeung

  31 Jul 2012 | 9:31 am

  Assuming that you have decided to hire a digital marketing agency over forming an in house team, the next step is knowing how to choose a competent agency. Sounds simple really but it isn't as straightforward as it seems, if you aren't familiar with the ins and outs of the industry. This industry comprises several specialised areas that combine data driven analytics with more tradtional creative marketing and messaging.As such, it's difficult to choose a proficient agency and evaluate its competency. What's more, this industry is FILLED with claims, all sorts of wild claims to…

• Intern Reveals The Inner Scoop and Dark Secrets of clickTRUE

  Ming Yeung

  19 Jul 2012 | 10:43 pm

  This is what I have learned here, using sensational headlines to get people to read an article. If you clicked out of curiosity then this really works haha. It is my last day at work here, and it is with mixed feelings that I am writing this. Happy that I’m finally going for my “delayed holiday”, and sad that I’ll be leaving this great place where I’m entitled to the largest and most pristinely polished white table in the office! But FINALLY, I don't have to do this: But I will miss taking buses 8 and 125 and then walking a unholy distance to get to the…

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  Samuel Lavoie

• Montreal’s SEO & Online Marketing Community is Thriving

  Samuel Lavoie

  12 May 2013 | 5:49 am

  SEO Camp Montreal 2013 For the third year in a row, I’m organizing the SEO Camp Montreal event, a full-day SEO/Inbound Marketing conference taking place in the city. Almost 200 attendees from Montreal, Quebec, Sherbrooke and Ottawa are coming to meet, speak and learn “in-the-trenches” tactics, tools and strategies from fellow digital agency professionals as well as a south of the border speakers. This year’s conference sold out before we were able to announce the speaker line-up, which is quite an achievement and shows that we’re still aligned in terms of pricing…

• Google Analytics Certification: How to Pass the new GAIQ Test

  Samuel Lavoie

  24 Jul 2012 | 6:05 am

  This week I took and passed the GAIQ Test for the second time. Last time was back in 2009 and so with a 18 months certification term I was way overdue. The thing is that Google Analytics will never let you know when your certification expired so you should make a note to yourself if want to stay enlisted in the Qualified Individuals I didn’t do much preparation this time around but I took some notes during the process. These steps and tips should be useful for the folks looking to pass the new version of the test, let me know how it goes! Why Getting a Google Analytics Certification? As…

• Email Marketing Crushes Social Media

  Samuel Lavoie

  13 Jul 2012 | 6:09 pm

  Email Marketing Crushes Social Media Email is a great business tool and when it’s put to good use with great & engaging content, it’s pretty powerful. A blog post written by the informationhighwayman.com @Bnonn stated 5 reasons why, Email Marketing is crushing it for B2B businesses. I think, Email Marketing is killing it for most business B2B or B2C who are using it the right way. Rather, it’s because email allows you to make repeated contact, and that contact is “invasive”. It’s in their mailbox—their inner electronic sanctum. That’s very different from sending…

• Rich Snippets Testing Tool

  Samuel Lavoie

  16 Apr 2012 | 10:24 pm

  So finally Google updated their Rich Snippet testing tool so we can all test how Google parse structured markup. The tool has been available for a while but we can now test html structured code during the development phase you don’t need to wait to publish it online. Google Rich Snippets Testing tool They also globally released Product Rich snippet support. Which means we’ll see more SERPs looking like this on Google.ca: Better start implementing Schema rich markup…If you’re still not sure about rich snippets, you may watch my last year introduction to rich snippets…

• Mike Monteiro: Fuck You. Pay Me.

  Samuel Lavoie

  28 Feb 2012 | 5:52 am

  Mike Monteiro, Design Director, and co-founder of Mule Design Studio at San Francisco, CreativeMornings. A year old but still a must watch (re watch), its gold for those dealing with clients. Also check out the corresponding post. When a client asks you how much something costs, every “ummmm” out of your mouth is thousands of dollars just vanished. If YOU don’t think you’re worth the money, your client certainly isn’t going to. If they want something different, they will let you know. Don’t negotiate with yourself on behalf of the client. Don’t convince yourself they won’t be…

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  Amplify Interactive

• Insider’s Guide to Adwords Enhanced Campaigns: Part II – Upgrading

  Ryan Campbell

  23 May 2013 | 8:30 am

  This is a follow-up to: The Insider’s Guide to AdWords Enhanced Campaigns: Part I If you’re following along with any news in the last couple months with PPC you’ve at least heard of Enhanced Campaigns from Google Adwords. Ever since this announcement the PPC community has been buzzing with reaction to this change from Google. There are many enhanced changes to be aware of that we covered in Part I, but today we’re going to walk you through the process of upgrading a campaign from “Legacy” to “Enhanced”. Google is forcing the upgrade to Enhanced on July 22nd. Stay in…

• Recent Updates to the Social Realm

  Jessica Ward

  20 May 2013 | 2:48 pm

  There have been a lot of changes when it comes to digital marketing over the past couple of months; however, there are a couple changes that have happened over the past week that I think are especially important to note. Facebook Cover Photo Policy Change Since 2012, Facebook has allowed businesses to have a cover photo on their Facebook pages. Guidelines for these cover photos have changed many times since their introduction, but the most recent changes make your cover photo work more for your brand than ever before. So let’s get into the changes – the Facebook guidelines still state…

• SEM Playlist: Best Articles of the Week 5/17/13

  Brendan Barnhart

  17 May 2013 | 1:38 pm

  We rounded up a list of our favorite Search, SEO (Inbound), Social, and Analytics blog post links that we came across this past week. These are either important updates to services we use or interesting content we find valuable. We know you found your favorite Blog Posts this week – comment with your link to something recent that you found interesting or important, pertaining to Search & Social Marketing. SEO & Social (Inbound) Articles How Your Business Can use the New Facebook Cover Photos Facebook has come out with new rules in regards to your business page cover photo. These…

• 6 Tips: How To Optimize Your Campaigns On Google’s Display Network

  Ashley Kennedy

  15 May 2013 | 2:40 pm

  Types of placements on the Google AdWords display network We’ve already covered ad copy and how to maximize your Google AdWords PPC budgetTo round out the three part series, we’re capping off with 6 Tips on how to optimize your campaigns on Google’s Display Network. And I promise, this is the last time you’ll see me talk about cat nip! Display campaigns are a critical part of online advertising and are often undervalued. They run as a great compliment to search campaigns and can be extremely effective when utilized properly. Check out my slides below, which provide…

• New Case Study! How We Used Personas to Turn Around a PPC Campaign

  Ben Lloyd

  13 May 2013 | 11:27 am

  This case study demonstrates how we turned around a failing PPC campaign by using personas to improve the keyword targeting. The result? We improved conversions by 152%. Creating Personas Improves PPC Campaign Performance by 152%! from Amplify Interactive Client Profile A client offering a self-serve version of a SAAS product that aggregated and displayed social media content on a website. The Challenge Our goal is to drive free trial sign ups via PPC. The campaign included Google AdWords, Bing Ads, Display & Retargeting. The problem? The campaign was under-performing. Turns out –…

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  SearchBlogger

• Why Online Marketing is Like Throwing a Party

  Jamie

  24 May 2013 | 4:06 am

  I was at a fantastic party recently and being unable to switch off from work meant I found myself comparing it to marketing a business (sad I know). Anyway, here are my observations on the similarities between throwing a party and promoting your business online. Do your guests have anything in common? Have you ever been to a party where the people you spoke to seemed a little boring? Maybe they talked about themselves all night or had nothing new to say. If you’re planning on promoting your business, imagine yourself at a party first. Do you want your company to come across as…

• Is Google About to Rock the Guest Blogging Boat?

  Jamie

  23 May 2013 | 7:48 am

  In the last week I’ve been reading a lot about the possibility of Google making some pretty big changes to the way it treats links from guest blogs. Keep reading to discover how this could affect your SEO strategy and what I’d suggest you do instead. What’s rumoured to be happening? It’s worthwhile stating that these are just rumours are at the moment, but I’ve read articles from some pretty authoritative figures within SEO who aren’t often wrong. Basically, backlinks achieved through the author bio section (where they most commonly appear) of a guest blog are possibly going to be…

• Facebook Graph Search: A Beginner’s Guide

  Jamie

  22 May 2013 | 6:33 am

  Read my beginner’s guide to Facebook Graph Search to discover how it could revolutionise the way you search for things online. What is Facebook Graph Search? Facebook Graph Search allows you to search photos, places or interests. It uses the data from your Facebook friends to return the most relevant results. It’s currently in invite-only beta testing mode but below I’ll have a look at what you can expect. How does it work?    When you type a phrase into the search bar, Facebook Graph Search uses data from your list of friends to deliver its results. It’s a smart system. For…

• How to Put a Positive Spin on Your Copy

  Jamie

  16 May 2013 | 1:33 am

  Today I want to talk about the use of negative language on websites. I’ll explain 5 examples of commonly used words, phrases and techniques you should avoid in your copy. #1 – Why not? “Why not give us a call?” – it sounds harmless enough but it doesn’t work too well in reality. This phrase actively encourages people to think of reasons not to call. A better example would be “Call us now because we’re the only award-winning accountants in your area”. #2 – Questions that lead to a ‘no’ answer An example of this could be “Do you lie awake at night worrying about your…

• 5 Ways to Ruin Business Relationships on Twitter

  Jamie

  15 May 2013 | 1:26 am

  It can take a lot of time and effort to build up trusting business relationships with people on Twitter. Unfortunately, it’s all too quick and easy to tarnish or destroy these. In this article, I’ll look at 5 ways to ruin your Twitter relationships. #1 – Forgetting your manners Manners cost nothing. If someone has been kind enough to retweet your latest blog post or video, you can at the very least take the time to say thank you. If you are ‘too busy’ or can’t be bothered do you think that person will bother to share anything you tweet again? Very unlikely. #2 – Take, take,…

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  Michigan Internet Marketing Firm | Big Daylight Group | SEO & PPC

• How to Optimize Videos for YouTube

  Sarah

  23 May 2013 | 12:26 pm

  As an SEO, my focus is generally on driving traffic to websites – not YouTube channels. That being said, YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, and there are definitely strategies you can utilize to ensure your videos get more direct views on YouTube itself. So without further ado: THE VIDEO So, this initial conversation about YouTube SEO started because my FINE coworker, Devon, is a content marketing maven. For example, a video she helped develop with Howdini about “How to Make a Princess Cake” has now gotten over 25,000,000 YouTube views. Whoa!? Why so…

• Keep Facebook Timeline Images Under 100K

  Sarah

  25 Apr 2013 | 12:14 pm

  A brief public service social media announcement from FINE Traverse City: Your Facebook Timeline Images should be under 100K. There’s not a lot of talk about this online anywhere. You can visit pages like https://www.facebook.com/CoverPhotoSize to see what the basic image dimensions should be, but you won’t find much about image file size in terms of kilobytes. Why is this important? Because if your file is larger than 100K, Facebook will reinterpolate the image. I’m not actually sure if reinterpolate is a real word. Hwever, it seems like the perfect infuriatingly inaccurate…

• The Death of Google Reader

  Christopher

  14 Mar 2013 | 7:20 am

  If you’ve not heard by now (and I’m pretty sure you have), Google is going to kill Google Reader on July 1, 2013. Kill it. Dead. As someone who allowed himself to rely on the service, that news is a giant drag; however, it’s not entirely surprising. Google supports a ton of free products – you can’t sustain that indefinitely. But, of all the services very few people used, why is Google Reader on the chopping block, and what does that say for RSS in general? Back in the day (which, in SEO terms, means 5 years ago, max) we used to recommend that anyone who created…

• The Search for Authenticity in Social Networks

  Sarah

  13 Mar 2013 | 12:10 pm

  What is the difference between what someone says, and what they really think? According to new social network Pencourage, a lot: Their About page is a fascinating scroll through what is presented as a new type of truly authentic social network. Instead of having to show your best face via a public persona under your own name, you can now show “every aspect of your life as it really is” via Pencourage. Let’s muse upon that concept for a second: 1. Are you really showing every aspect of your life as it really is, if you aren’t disclosing your real identity on Pencourage?

• 8 Social Media New Year’s Resolutions

  Nick Nerbonne

  11 Jan 2013 | 1:37 pm

  Back in December I put together my Social Media Holiday Wish List, and now that we’re over a week into 2013 I thought I’d follow up with a few “resolutions” to consider for making your social media presence better in 2013. These aren’t ground-breaking insights, but the list below are things I try to do – both with my personal accounts and with clients I work with – to get the most out of social communication. 1. Give Credit Where Credit is Due Are you sharing someone else’s photo on Facebook or Instagram? Posting a link to a blog post on Twitter…

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  Ker Communications

• Google’s Penguin 2.0 Update Is Now Live

  Nick Ker

  22 May 2013 | 6:12 pm

  Google’s new Penguin 2.0 update rolled out today, May 22, 2013. The new version of the web-spam fighting algorithm update  supposedly has new improved capabilities to stop link spam. The original Penguin, which was launched April 24, 2012, mostly targeted overoptimized websites that used link spam from lower quality sites, often over-using keywords as the anchor text of the links  to try to improve search engine rankings. It is generally assumed that Penguin 2.0 will be more of the same, but hopefully more effective and more accurate. In a video about what to expect from Google in the…

• Does Hiring Multiple SEO Companies Make It Work Faster?

  Nick Ker

  15 May 2013 | 3:20 am

  This is part 5 of 5 in the series More Is Not Always BetterProbably not. “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Sometimes a client will ask if it will be helpful to hire an additional SEO company, or a few extra individual SEOs, to help with all the work. This usually means we have failed to educate the client on how it all works, or we have not had that conversation yet. Much of the “work” involved with SEO is analysis, and strategy development. Unless your multiple SEO services are working closely together, the chances of any two coming up with the exact same strategy or…

• Is Having Several Websites with Keywords in the Domain Names a Good Strategy?

  Nick Ker

  14 May 2013 | 1:20 pm

  This is part 4 of 5 in the series More Is Not Always BetterA few years ago, a common but spammy practice was to buy as many domains as possible that contain your keywords. The idea was that you could then have many sites showing up in the search results since it was often easy to rank high for “favorite keyword” with an Exact Match Domain (EMD) like “favoritekeyword.com”. If that didn’t work out, you could have the extra domains redirect to your real site and still get some of the benefit. And by owning every possible keyword matched domain, you could avoid…

• Is It Good to Get Lots of Fake Social Media Followers?

  Nick Ker

  14 May 2013 | 1:20 am

  This is part 3 of 5 in the series More Is Not Always BetterLots of Followers, Likes, +1′s, Circlers, Retweets and Pins are indeed good – as long as they are real. Don’t fall into the trap of forgetting there are real people looking at you, not just search engines and social platforms. Buying social media endorsements like Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers or Tweets makes you look deceptive, and the social media platforms and search engines are wise to this scheme.  If you have a small business that is not likely to serve more than a handful of people a year and your site…

• Links Are Like Votes. Should I Get As Many As I Can?

  Nick Ker

  13 May 2013 | 7:40 pm

  This is part 2 of 5 in the series More Is Not Always BetterMore is sometimes better, but better is worth more. When Google rolled out the Penguin algorithm update which filtered out sites that were benefiting from a high number of manipulative, spammy backlinks, it really called attention to the fact that the “more is better” myth is still strong in SEO link building. Sure, you can still bring a website much closer to the top of the search results by posting hundreds of “nice post” blog comments, buying a bunch of spam blog guest posts or a variety of other ways of…

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  RankSurge

• Damn Right I’m an SEO Mercenary

  Paul

  21 May 2013 | 4:15 am

  Damn Right I’m an SEO Mercenary Here’s a hard truth that no one mentions in talking to a client. When you hire me, you are hiring me to care. As soon as you stop paying, I no longer care. I’ll confess that sometimes letting a client go is a FANTASTIC feeling. Not having to worry about someone else’s problems relieves a ton of stress. I love the conversations where a potential SEO client tells me that “once I prove myself” that they will spend more money. BULL-FUCKING-SHIT! Let’s see, that has happened exactly TWICE in over the 500 clients I’ve…

• Social Currency doesn’t Pay the Bills

  Paul

  7 May 2013 | 4:32 am

  Social Currency doesn’t Pay the Bills We’re all guilty. You been posting, tweeting, liking, subscribing, following, adding to your circles and handing out plus one votes. Then one day, a post of yours gets some attention. Maybe someone well known in your industry links to your article. Maybe some internet influencers like your post. You might even get some people to comment on whatever it is you composed. Feels good, right? But does that help with your groceries or utility payment? I can already hear those who would take this social activity as a way to earn brandability,…

• Good SEO Don’t Come with Short Cuts

  Paul

  3 May 2013 | 5:42 am

  Good SEO Don’t Come with Short Cuts Yeah, that’s right, I purposely used improper English. But it got you here, and so the story begins. If you listen closely to those spammy emails you get from India, it would be hard to think that getting ranked takes any effort. According to those compelling emails, for a small amount of moeny every month, your site will soon be soaring to the top of the search rankings. They promise to get you directory lsitings, create compelling articles and get links at a guaranteed rate that is absolutely startling for what they charge. And to think, here…

• You’re Too Cheap to Afford Good SEO

  Paul

  15 Apr 2013 | 6:48 am

  You’re Too Cheap to Afford Good SEO You know who you are. The one who thinks all those Indian SEO companies can get you links that are worth anything. The one who thinks the next WSO will “finally” crack that elusive ranking that you want. The one who thinks that spending $500 a month is enough to get you ranked, paying someone to do all your work. The one who thinks that a top ranking in Google will be all you need, nevermind the low quality of your site. The one who thinks that “likes” and “followers” have a real ROI. The one who thinks that all you…

• Transparent with my SEO Strategies? Bullshit!

  Paul

  11 Apr 2013 | 5:32 am

  Transparent with my SEO Strategies? Bullshit! I saw an article that says that one of the qualifications of a “real” SEO firm is to be transparent with all their activities that they take part in. This also means sharing any knowledge with respected SEO communities. By doing this, I am now part of the “good” group of SEOs. F THAT. I have a technique that I’ve been using for about seven months now that gets my site on the first page of Google with every post. Do you think I am going to SHARE that with the world? Just so that they can use it and knock me and my…

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  Koozai.com

• Feel The Fear And Disavow: Why You Have To Use The Google Disavow Tool

  Oliver Ewbank

  24 May 2013 | 1:52 am

  With the next Penguin update now live it is important that site owners are comfortable with the quality of their backlinks.  If you fear you may have unnatural links one option is to disavow the source in Google Webmaster Tools. This post will look at the benefits of using the Disavow tool and why you shouldn’t be afraid of using it. So lets get started. The Fear So for years and years people were crying out for a way to discount unwanted backlinks to their domain. What did Google do? They listened! Back in October 2012 Google being the sympathetic bunch that they are released the Disavow…

• Are You Ready For AdWords Enhanced Campaigns? A Free Step By Step Guide

  Tara West

  23 May 2013 | 6:30 am

  Today I’m speaking at On the Edge in Manchester about AdWords Enhanced Campaigns. This post contains my slides and a summary of the talk. On the 22nd of July, AdWords are changing all campaigns to Enhanced Campaigns. It’s important that you don’t wait until the 22nd of July and let Google upgrade your campaigns for you, because if you do, the settings and changes Google make will mean that your advertising may become less affective. This presentation will explain what Enhanced Campaigns are, and the new features that come with them. It will also talk you through upgrading to enhanced…

• Visions of Google’s Future – Google Glass, AI and Next Gen Search Engines

  Ali Moghadam

  23 May 2013 | 2:18 am

  Google’s I/O conference gets technology and SEO folks all worked up. It might be for developers, but we’ve all got a stake in Googley goings on. Reading up about it over the weekend, it seems that Google has teased us all with visions of the future – well, the Google-centric version of the future. In Harry’s latest post (Seeing Double – How to Win the Second Screen Revolution), he talks about a future laden with self-driving hover cars and multi-function gesture controlled windows. Sounds cool huh? Cool as it may be, science fiction is quickly becoming indistinguishable from science…

• How To Recover From A Manual Google Penalty – Step By Step Guide

  Emma North

  22 May 2013 | 2:55 am

  This a transcript for our new video. Today I’d like to talk to you about recovering from a manual link penalty. Now this is typically where Google has reviewed the links pointing to your site and decided that there are too many in there that look unnatural. It typically starts with an unnatural link warning in Google Webmaster Tools. It’s not always the case, but generally if you haven’t received this warning and you still think that you may have suffered as a result of a link penalty, the chances are it’s an algorithmic penalty caused by Google Penguin. The…

• How To Use YouTube For Direct Response Advertising

  Aaron Levy

  22 May 2013 | 1:39 am

  It’s Guest Post Time! Aaron Levy is our guest poster today who is looking at which advertising formats work best with YouTube, alongside the best metrics to track and an amazing new feature that hardly anyone knows about.  I’m sure at this point just about everyone has heard YouTube’s claim to fame driven home by Google reps. No, not that it’s the world’s largest repository of cat videos. Rather if you haven’t heard, YouTube is actually the second largest search engine on the internet. Search engine! So why aren’t we search marketers taking advantage? Traditionally, YouTube has…

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  Andrew Wee | Blogging | Affiliate Marketing | Social Traffic Generation | Internet Marketing

• Casual Connect Asia 2013 – GameStop (Kongregate) – F2P success strategies

  Andrew Wee

  23 May 2013 | 1:19 am

  The title of the presentation may have been long, but GameStop’s principal for business development, David Chiu, gave a wealth of stats that reinforced a lot of what you might have heard and know, but it also had some surprised that were backed up by data from stats from game portal Kongregate. Hence, “Maximizing Player Retention and Monetization in Free-to-Play Games: Comparative Stats for Asian & Western Games” probably ranked as the best session for me on day 2 of Casual Connect Asia 2013 which was held in Singapore. Some stats about Kongregate: 15 million monthly…

• Casual Connect Singapore: Tips from DeNA – How to create a bestselling mobile game

  Andrew Wee

  21 May 2013 | 9:10 am

  Tokyo-based DeNA Co Ltd, which owns the mobage games platform has had a winner with it’s Blood Brother’s mobile RPG , which has ranked #1 on Google Play in 33 countries. So it was great to get an insight into how the company put together its strategy to come up with a winning game. DeNA Singapore managing director Tetsuya Mori presented a session “How a Japanese mobile RPG made it big outside Japan” at Casual Connect Singapore today. Mr Mori said that previously a game’s success had been often linked to a gaming platform, like Super Mario being linked to the…

• Game development conference in Singapore: Casual Connect Asia

  Andrew Wee

  8 May 2013 | 8:00 pm

    Despite fallout after Facebook started steadily imposing their 30% “tax” on in-game purchases last year, the Internet’s largest social network has seen a steady exodus of game publishers from the platform. On a rough basis, it feels like anywhere from 30-50% of hardcore players have chosen to move their game playing to dedicated game platforms like Zynga, Kongregate or MochiGames, or are playing on standalone game sites like Ninjakiwi or Armorgames. Recent coverage in the Wall Street Journal has talked about the trend of major game launches fuelled by major ad…

• A crazy 2012 and probably a crazier 2013

  Andrew Wee

  24 Apr 2013 | 1:56 am

  Last year (2012) was a busy year. Between recruiting and managing some of the top affiliates while I was an affiliate manager with Neverblue and organising training events in Singapore as well as a very successful one in Thailand, I did not get much sleep. It was a great experience working with Sam Brachat, then Michelle Reid from Neverblue, as well as a great time of account managers (who’ve a great understanding of how advertisers structure their offers and the best ways to provide great lead quality and get onto accelerated payments). Tips for aspiring affiliates: Work hard and…

• Understanding a Niche vs a Vertical and the $ making difference

  Andrew Wee

  18 Jul 2012 | 7:00 pm

  I see affiliates using “niche” and “vertical” interchangeably, but I think sorting your thinking straight on the key difference is going to be one of the things that helps you scale your online earnings. At first glance both words refer to a category or topic (like gardening, or finance, or games) that you hope to theme an online marketing campaign around…so it seems similar, but it’s not. A niche in time… Let’s look at some examples: A niche (variously pronounced as “nitch” or “neesh” depending on which side of the pond…

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  SEO Andy // SEO Andy

• Google Penguin 2.0 – What It Really Means

  Andy Kinsey

  24 May 2013 | 6:01 am

  If you are involved in internet marketing at any level you really can’t have missed the huge noise across social media about the landing of Google Penguin 2.0 – the latest Google Update, a huge refresh and algo change for the previous Penguin updates. It went live on Wednesday evening (US time) and since then reports have flooded in of websites being hit by penalties, such as the below, to others who are celebrating improved rankings. @andykinsey yup, rankings are affected negatively…most of the keywords that just started ranking are now on 8-9th pages. — Manish Chauhan…

• 10 Quick Social Media Tips for Politicians

  Andy Kinsey

  22 May 2013 | 7:47 am

  Social Media is a growing concern for anyone in politics or business. It’s grown hugely in the past few years, with Facebook leading the field and trailing somewhat (but still very important) Twitter and Google+. In this post I want to share my 10 easy social media tips for politicians, local and national. Some of these are warnings and some really handy tips, either way take them – share them and grow your social media profile. Social Media Tips for Politicians 1) Commit Yourself to Social Media There is nothing quite as bad as someone doing bits on Social Media but not…

• Do and Don’ts of SEO for websites

  Brianne Walter

  20 May 2013 | 2:03 am

  SEO or search engine optimization is basically an important part of online marketing strategy, which helps in getting higher traffics over your site. SEO is all about influencing the search engines to rank your site higher over the different search results. Hence it is vital to make a couple of changes and adjustments to optimize your site or blog to rank higher over the search engine results. There are people who could know a number of mandatory things, which are a must in any SEO strategy, but tend to forget to check the things that they need to avoid (mistakes and blunders) coming in the…

• 4 Reasons Good Content Marketing Will Boost Your Business

  boney pandya

  17 May 2013 | 1:29 am

  If you’re doing the content marketing thing the right way, you can greatly benefit your business. Developing solid, informative posts that aren’t too SEO and ad heavy, or “market-y” will improve your company’s reputation and make you a voice within your industry. With Content Marketing the aim should be to try and make the SEO content worth reading. It’ll also help you improve your bottom line, here’s how: 1. Industry Respect Nice quality articles about the goings-on in your market will bring you the respect of your competition. Don’t make your…

• How to Optimise Images for More Site Traffic

  Tom Spooner

  15 May 2013 | 1:53 am

  Making sure that all of the images on your website or blog are optimised is essential. Boring, I hear you cry. Well, it doesn’t have to be and remember it is vital to the success of your site. It’s a fact. So if you haven’t already, it’s time to join the ‘cult of alt’, get your Meta performing better and optimise your images for more traffic. If you use images on your site – and let’s face it, you really should be – then it is important to use img alt tags so that these images can be indexed by search engine crawlers. If you don’t complete img alt tags then these…

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  Network Intellect » Blog

• Developing for Google Glass

  Network Intellect

  16 May 2013 | 11:00 pm

  Although Google Glass is not available to everyone right now, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start developing for it yet. Google has recently released the documentation for their Mirror API, meaning that developers now have a new place to start creating apps. Glass is the first mainstream and viable way to bring constant computing to our world. We moved from the home with desktop PCs, to the street with mobiles and now we will be constantly connected with Google Glass. Google Glass will be comfortable, unobtrusive and will be instantly available due to the fact that it will be…

• Working With Modernizr

  Network Intellect

  14 May 2013 | 11:00 pm

  Have you ever torn your hair out at older version of Internet Explorer and its inability to play ball with your lovely new designs. Even using the newest spec of HTML (currently version 5) is not possible in pre IE9 due to its inability to parse HTML5 elements. You don’t want to not be able to use the latest web technologies in your clients projects, but how do you use them but still keep your site backwards compatible to still work near enough as expected in older versions of Internet Explorer I hear you ask? In comes Modernizr. What is Modernizr? From their site: Modernizr is a…

• Working With HTML5

  Network Intellect

  12 May 2013 | 11:00 pm

  Now we have our environment set up its time for the fun stuff, lets begin to code! First of all open up your text editor and save your file “index.html” on your desktop. The .html extension at the end of the file tells the web browser that the file contains html code and to treat it as such, compiling it into a html page with content areas, text etc. In 99% of web server environments the home page of your website will always need to be named “index.html” as this is the page that the server looks for first when a person types in your web address in the browser. If you…

• Beginning With HTML5

  Network Intellect

  9 May 2013 | 11:00 pm

  Never written any HTML5 code before? Scared of the thought? Think its an impossible minefield to overcome? Don’t fear! If you take baby steps you will soon learn to run with it and start making all sorts of content and you never know, you may move on to use other dynamic languages that you once thought impossible! What do I need to write webcode? A text editor Yes, thats it! All you need is the standard text editor that comes with your computer. What is HTML? HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is the basic code that every website in the entire world is written in, including…

• Why jQuery Mobile?

  Network Intellect

  7 May 2013 | 11:00 pm

  What is jQuery Mobile? Good question to start with! The jQuery mobile framework allows you to design a single highly-branded web site or application that will work on all popular smartphone, tablet, and desktop platforms So Why jQuery Mobile? jQuery Mobile is a mobile-first framework and no a mobile only framework which means that you can develop responsive web designs on top of the jQuery Mobile plugins, below are 2 of my favourite features in the new jQuery Mobile versions. Panel Widget We all know that side sliding Facebook menu, and now we have access to our very own thanks to jQuery…

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  PPC Associates Blog

• Stay truly connected with online communication

  admin

  24 May 2013 | 8:39 am

  Today’s post is by Sr. Production Services Manager Gordon Khoo, whose communication skills come in handy as he trains colleagues from the Bay Area to Chicago. Words often have multiple meanings, largely determined by body language and context, though this is lost in most modern forms of communication. There is a lot of room for misinterpretation in this Internet era dominated by #generation where communique is distilled to emails, texts, and tweets. Today, when there are far more emails than face-to-face meetings, it’s increasingly important to choose our … Continue reading…

• Get on Board with Google Trends

  admin

  23 May 2013 | 8:49 am

  Today’s post is by Account Associate Miguel Madrigal , a Bay Area native who heroically wrote this post despite a severe case of Warriors fever. Google has many great free tools for Search Engine Marketers, and Google Trends is one of them. The tool, which has been around for a while but still flies under the radar a bit, allows us to see what type of interest certain search queries will have in comparison to others and assign a value to them (with a max of 100). We can … Continue reading →

• Use Content to Boost Your PPC ROI

  admin

  22 May 2013 | 8:30 am

  Today’s post is by Michelle Lowery, Exec. Editor of ChamberofCommerce.com. When was the last time you considered the content on your site before you fired up a new PPC campaign? Or did it even occur to you that maybe you should? A lot of people see PPC as a quick and easy win in the marketing sphere, and sometimes it is. Hit upon the right term at the right time, and you can watch your ad easily outdistance the top search engine results. But…what if there were more? More … Continue reading →

• Cognitive Linearity

  Todd Mintz

  21 May 2013 | 6:10 am

  When our company toured the Zappos headquarters last year as part of our corporate annual retreat, I stole filched took was given a complimentary copy of Tony Hsieh’s book. It sat on my shelf for a while as I gradually reduced the books on my “to read” list to two…Tony’s book and a dense 1,300-page Norman Mailer compilation. Being somewhat scared and intimidated by the Mailer book, I finally read Tony’s book…and it was a decent read. However, since I knew most of the history already, I couldn’t … Continue reading →

• 6 Uses of IFTTT for PPC Pros

  Katie Saxon

  20 May 2013 | 5:44 am

  Today I’m going to talk automation, but not quite in the way that you might think (for that you should check out these great posts). Instead let’s talk about IFTTT.com. If you’ve never heard of it before (where have you been?), it’s a simple tool for automating your life online using the simple recipe “if X happens, do Y.” There’s a whole bunch of weird and wonderful ways you can use the service: Use Liam Neeson’s badass quote from “Taken” to scare someone into returning your phone. Or … Continue reading →

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  Internet, Web and Online Marketing Blog by Brick Marketing

• Evergreen Content Provides Lasting SEO Value

  Nick Stamoulis

  24 May 2013 | 3:15 am

  For year two of their B2B SEO strategy, I recommended that one of my clients invest more in content marketing. We had been trying to get a steady stream of content going live on their blog for some time but internal red tape and the review process meant that it usually took 2-3 weeks (if [...]

• How to Keep Your Anchor Text Linking Safe

  Brick Marketing

  24 May 2013 | 3:00 am

  Content has become an essential part of SEO. Content is what gets indexed and found by the search engines. It also helps to build an inbound link portfolio. Content that includes links that is shared on other sites gets an inbound link from that site and can also help to generate traffic. In the wake [...]

• Purpose-Driven Content Marketing Basics

  Brick Marketing

  24 May 2013 | 1:00 am

  This is a guest post by Steve Klinghoffer of WPI Communications, Inc. All writing requires two components: an audience and a purpose. A writer who forgets or confuses one of those two elements runs the risk of boring or outright alienating a reader. When creating content, it is important not only to create a large [...]

• Why SEO is Slow

  Brick Marketing

  23 May 2013 | 4:00 am

  One of the most important points that we try to make to prospective SEO clients is that SEO is a slow process. It’s not the kind of marketing tactic that’s going to have immediate results or a quick ROI. The complete opposite is true. In fact, it can take many months or possibly even years [...]

• Blog Posts to Read for May 23, 2013

  Brick Marketing

  23 May 2013 | 12:00 am

  Below you will find our favorite blog posts that are related to SEO, search engine marketing and social media marketing from this past week. Please feel free to visit each, we hope you find them as helpful as we do! 5 Ways to Bond with Your Blog’s Audience By: Henneke of Copyblogger 5 tips to [...]

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  Web Gnomes

• Gnome Likes: Google Slapping Mozilla, Penguin Party & Better SEO Metrics

  steve

  29 Apr 2013 | 3:30 am

  Remember a few months ago when I said, Gnome Likes is “back and better than ever in 2013!” Yeah… me either In my defense, last month’s newsletter was jam packed with exciting SEO news. But you’re right: that’s not good enough, which is why I’m dusting off the cobwebs for an extra special edition of Gnome Likes! So without further ado, let’s dive into the most interesting SEO posts/events/etc. from the past week… Google Hits Mozilla with Spam Penalty Over User Generated Content Without question, the biggest industry news from last week…

• Gnome Likes: Blogging About Anything, Post Ideas & SEO Audits

  steve

  14 Jan 2013 | 6:02 am

  In case you didn’t notice, the Gnome Likes series took an extended vacation over the holidays, but now, it’s back and better than ever in 2013! There haven’t been any recent Google update announcements (Panda #23 went live right before Christmas, but that was weeks ago) so we’re going to jump right into this week’s featured SEO posts. If you have a blog, you’re going to love this week’s posts (if you don’t have a blog, these posts might motivate you to get one). They include lots of content creation ideas and very exciting SEO-related tips. So…

• Gnome Likes: Google Changes, SEO Predictions & Blog Highlights

  steve

  10 Dec 2012 | 4:05 am

  In last week’s recap, we highlighted a few of our favorite discussions in the world of SEO. This week, we’re back to summarizing our favorite posts… with a slight twist. Since the end of 2012 is rapidly approaching, this week’s recap focuses on posts that review 2012 and make predictions about 2013. But before we jump into this week’s recap, let’s take a quick look at last week’s Google activity: According to this MozCast screenshot, Google made a significant change on Wednesday (12/5). Google hasn’t confirmed anything publicly, but Dr. Pete…

• Gnome Likes: Update Life Cycle, Link Building & Content Curation

  steve

  3 Dec 2012 | 3:01 am

  In this week’s recap, we’re going to mix things up a little. Instead of summarizing our favorite posts, we’re highlighting a few extremely interesting discussions that took place last week (and are still ongoing). Some of these discussions are attached to blog posts, and some of them just happened naturally. But all of them are worth a read… and hopefully, you’ll feel compelled to participate in these conversations! Before we dive in, I have to give my obligatory weekly Google update. On Friday, Barry Schwartz reported that Panda 22 was released on November 21.

• Gnome Likes: UX Tips, 100K Organic Visits & Greedy Travel Sites

  steve

  19 Nov 2012 | 3:28 am

  Before I dive into this week’s exciting recap, I need to add a quick addendum to the search result hijacking post that was featured last week. In that post, Dan Petrovic describes how he was able to hijack the search results of four different websites by posting duplicate versions of their content on pages with higher PageRank values. On Friday, Dan posted the following screenshot: Apparently, Google finally caught on to Dan’s experiments, and the hijacked content was correctly attributed to the appropriate webmasters. I want to believe this is an encouraging sign that hijackers…

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  Vertical Leap Search Marketing

• Will guest blog post services continue to offer value with Google?

  Chris Taylor

  23 May 2013 | 6:17 am

  Guest blogging services today seem to be one of the safest options available for getting links whilst also remaining favourable with Google’s guidelines. If done correctly, guest blogging can indeed be one of the best ways to serve a multitude of functions, such as brand building, link building and relationship building – all whilst offering true value to internet users in search of quality content. However, SEO practitioners from some of the biggest names in the business – such as SEO Moz and Econsultancy – are now beginning to question the validity of guest blogging as a long-term…

• Calculating Paid Search ROI – Are Your Campaigns Worthwhile?

  Georgina Wall

  23 May 2013 | 5:20 am

  Paid search campaigns offer exposure across highly relevant results, enabling you to appear when and where you decide fit. The only downside is the ‘paid’ part. Unlike organic listings, you do have to pay for the privilege to appear here, and in a lot of cases the cost per click is nothing to be sniffed at! So how do you know if your PPC campaign is worth it? The answer to this can be easily unlocked in just a few steps… Don’t Forget the Tracking First things first, make sure you have tracking implemented correctly. This may sound obvious but it can be easily overlooked amongst…

• Keyword Planner: AdWords New Release

  James Faulkner

  22 May 2013 | 7:37 am

  A new keyword research tool from Google is being rolled out! This will replace the existing Keyword Tool & Traffic Estimator to create the combined ‘Keyword Planner’. Many grumblings where the existing system was concerned were related to the complexity of using the two tools together, as well as the accuracy of data. Thankfully, Google has listened once again and has clearly tried to enhance their offering further – thereby making their system more useable and reliable. Obviously, this is a key component of AdWords and one that Google is keen to develop. Keyword Planner is built to…

• How to add a new user to your Google Analytics account

  Emily Mace

  22 May 2013 | 12:46 am

  If you have a new member of staff or an agency working on your website, you will need to add them to your Google Analytics (GA) account. If you don’t, they won’t be able to help you report on the performance of your website or marketing activities. This guide talks you through how to set up a new user on your GA account. Firstly, you will need to have administrative access to the GA account you want to add someone to. If you are not an administrator, then you won’t have the correct permissions to make such changes. Secondly, the new user you are creating needs to have a valid Google…

• Remarketing; you are the only limitation

  George Haslett

  21 May 2013 | 8:38 am

  Remarketing has always been pretty remarkable. It involves following people around the web that have visited your website but not purchased (one example), with your adverts. Now, Google has really upped their game with its most recent iteration of remarketing: Google Analytics remarketing. Almost all of the things that can be done with the new Google Analytics remarketing could have been done with what now feels like its anile predecessor; but it was far more complicated, far more time consuming and far more… just… annoying. It wasn’t easy if you didn’t already have a good…

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  Rocky Mountain Search Engine Academy

• The Good, the Bad, and the SEO Ugly

  Ross Barefoot

  5 May 2013 | 11:55 am

  Gunning for the SEO Bad Guys Our marketing director Matt Rutherford recently started a discussion on LinkedIn titled Have you been scammed by an SEO Firm or Company? (click here to link through to the discussion on Linkedin) A lot of good comments were posted, and the whole discussion reminded me of an email that one [...]

• Digital Marketing Helps Small Businesses Compete With Big Brands Online

  Guest

  25 Mar 2013 | 10:47 am

  Digital Marketing Challenges Digital marketing can be a confusing and challenging environment for the small business owner. There are only 10 (and sometimes only 7) positions on the first page of Google and when you type in search terms relevant to your business, you might find that big brands with big marketing budgets are occupying [...]

• You Have to Check Out the New Google Data Highlighter

  Eliathah Boda

  5 Feb 2013 | 11:09 am

  If you read any of Ross’s recent articles on structured data, you can’t miss what I’m about to show you. My guess is, if you’re not a complete geek, you were a bit intimidated by the idea of implementing structured data on your website. Heck, I do this stuff for a job and some of [...]

• Video: Local Search and Blended Results, How Your Business is Affected

  Eliathah Boda

  23 Jan 2013 | 11:02 am

  This video is a non-technical explanation for business people learning to understand how Google’s Plus Local database is affecting search engine results pages and changing the visibility of businesses with traditional organic search listings. You can view the rest of our SEO Videos Here

• 10 Steps to Online Success in 2013

  Guest

  17 Jan 2013 | 12:00 pm

  Finding success online can look different from one business to the next, depending on the goals of that business.  However, for any business the number one goal should be to “Add Value”.  By adding value to their customers and prospects they’ll see the profits rolling in. Adding value online can be tricky.  There are many [...]

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  Pilot Fish SEO Blog

• Stormy summer for SEO companies, sites taking link shortcuts

  john

  22 May 2013 | 6:43 am

  Recently I’ve done a number of web site audits for prospective clients that have come to us for help. During our normal review process, we look at your SEO strategy from techniques used on your website (ie. keyword use, content quality, tags) and coming into your site (mainly links). What I’m finding more frequently than ever before are sites using a high number of low-quality links to build links back to their site. For years and even now (unfortunately), low-quality links have oftentimes helped rank your site on search engines. Originally, the thinking was “the more links, the…

• Trimming the Fat from Your Website

  heather

  20 May 2013 | 1:13 pm

  Well, here we are again. It’s SPRINGTIME!! Yayyyy!! The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining and the weather is ab-so-lutely beautiful! Finally, it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for! But, as much as we hate to admit it, the sunshine and beautiful weather often tend to shed light on a problem that can cause us a little bit of guilt and embarrassment. You guessed it … it’s those dreaded WINTER POUNDS. *shriek* But, wait, I’m not talking about your waistline. I’m actually referring to the extra, unhealthy weight your website has slowly, but surely, accumulated over the…

• SEO in a Nutshell

  beth

  24 Apr 2013 | 11:18 am

  Search engine optimization isn’t difficult. But, as with any well-honed craft, properly implemented SEO requires knowing which knobs to twist. Here’s a list of SEO knobs that you can turn to make sure your website performs as well as possible on the search engines: Identify search terms that prospects are actually using to find your products and services Include those terms in the coding and text of all your web pages Install analytics coding on each page to track website usage, traffic sources and other useful information (Google Analytics is free) Add new pages based on those terms to…

• Don’t be a “Don’t Bee” – Websites need active recordkeeping

  beth

  17 Apr 2013 | 7:03 am

  I see Susie … and I see Jimmy … and Mikey … and Patsy. Yep, just like Miss Barbara or Miss Joan or whoever your Romper Room hostess was, I’m calling each of you out, personally, fondly and urgently. And just as Miss Claire and the rest of the hostesses reminded you to be polite and kind and patriotic, I’m here to remind you to be responsible. Specifically, responsible for the important information about where your corporate website is located and how it can be accessed. Here’s a list of the basic information you should know about your B2B website: Domain name registrar DNS host…

• In B2B SEO, sometimes, you don’t get what you pay for

  angela

  8 Apr 2013 | 5:22 am

  We’ve all heard the phrase “you get what you pay for,” and it’s probably one you’ve used in exasperation when pushed by a client to match the price of a competitor who’s offering an inferior product or service. But, when it comes to website design and search engine optimization (SEO), sometimes you DON’T get what you pay for. “What?” You ask. “How can that be?” The truth is, there are a lot of SEO-ignorant or just flat-out unscrupulous web design and SEO companies that bank on the fact that you know very little about SEO. So, when you ask for a new site that’s…

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  B2B Internet Marketing Company Los Angeles, SEO, PPC, Social Media Marketing » Blog

• 9 Ideas For Building Traffic To Your Website From Pinterest

  adminchaosmap

  20 May 2013 | 9:26 pm

  Pinterest has grown to be a major social networking site that has the potential to greatly increase the traffic to any website. That’s why it is important, especially for new and pioneering businesses, to incorporate this social networking site to their online marketing strategy. Although using Pinterest itself is already an effective habit, knowing and applying these nine ideas for building traffic to your website is something that will accelerate your success.1. Generate Original IdeasPosting original content within Pinterest is going to be the key to your success, so make sure you always…

• 7 Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing For B2B

  adminchaosmap

  9 May 2013 | 10:55 am

  Email marketing is a great way to reach your target audience as personally and uniquely as possible. It is also cost-efficient because all you have to do is compose a weekly or monthly newsletter to attract their attention and convert them into loyal customers. With the many changes to advertising and online marketing in the B2B markets, you must adapt the way you do your newsletters to the needs and accessibility of your audiences. Updating your approach as often as possible is the only way you can retain the interest, excitement, and quantity of your e-subscribers. Here are seven ways…

• Finding Success With SoLoMo Marketing (Social, Local, Mobile)

  adminchaosmap

  24 Apr 2013 | 10:00 pm

  SoLoMo is on the tip of every savvy marketer’s tongue, and there’s good reason for this. SoLoMo (Social-Local-Mobile) marketing adds local information to search engine results in order to capitalize on the increasing use of mobile devices. According to data compiled by Monetate: nearly 90 million (or 78 percent) of the 116 smartphone owners search for retail content on their smartphones every month.In 2012, these searches influenced over $159 billion worth of sales, and these numbers are only expected to keep growing. Unexpectedly High Conversion Rates Online marketers may be…

• How to Integrate Blogging into Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

  adminchaosmap

  24 Apr 2013 | 12:20 pm

  Social media marketing has been proven effective for years now, both for brand building and lead generation. The amount of online activity people invest in their everyday lives simply demands your business to utilize online platforms and tools to your advantage. Especially if YOUR audience is already there. It is important to get the word out about your products, services and how you can help them. However, there is an ingredient you just can’t afford to miss: trust. An effective business blog is what you need to build this.Here are 7 considerations to make that happen:Add Your Personal…

• How Captive Audience Marketing Still Works For Advertisers

  adminchaosmap

  7 Apr 2013 | 8:46 pm

  In 2010, Time Magazine wrote an article about schools selling advertising space in their hallways to companies that wanted to market to children and teenagers. The subject matter was harmless — banner ads spanning lockers trying to sell branded notebooks and school supplies — but parents of children who attended the schools had problems with the districts essentially commercializing what’s intended to be a place of education. The practice is called “captive audience advertising.” In the case of the schools, the children really had no other choice than to walk up and down…

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  Have Results SEM Blog

• SEO in 2013: The Year of the Consumer

  Mina Adly Younan

  24 May 2013 | 10:44 am

  In 2013, SEO will shift from optimizing websites for search engines to optimizing content for users. So, you have many things to do and a lot others to avoid. Here them all in this exciting infographic:   Source: ticsyformacion.com via Alexandra on Pinterest

• Community Managers Bible (Another Infographic)

  Mina Adly Younan

  24 May 2013 | 10:40 am

  How about one infographic (colorful illustration) with all the basic Rules you need to know as a Social Media Marketer or Community Manager.

• Google Analytics in 1 InfoGraphic

  Mina Adly Younan

  24 May 2013 | 10:35 am

  I stumbled upon this infographic about Decoding Google Analytics on OpenForum.com and would love to share it with you.

• Social Media Cheat Sheet - Infographic

  Mina Adly Younan

  24 May 2013 | 10:32 am

  Source: marketingtechblog.com via Alexandra on Pinterest

• Reddit Secret Plan for World Domination - Presentation

  Mina Adly Younan

  24 May 2013 | 10:30 am

  It's amazing to see how the Ugly looking Social Media Cat "reddit" is getting 5 Billion Visitors in 2013. Being the fastest growing social space in America, it's also one of the most influential. Enjoy! this SlideShare Presentation

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  Interactivity Marketing - SEO - Myrtle Beach Marketing - Web Design

• 5 Common Mistakes in PPC

  Lynn Strickland

  23 May 2013 | 7:58 pm

  Managing various PPC campaigns allows me to observe a number of mistakes that advertisers make when establishing a new PPC campaign.  With Pay Per Click, even a minor mistake can end up costing your campaign hundreds and even thousands of dollars. The following is a list of 5 common mistakes in marketers make with their paid search (PPC) campaigns: Failing to bid on YOUR brand name:  Your brand name is just that, it is YOUR name.  Even if you currently have the #1 spot via organic SEO, who wouldn’t want their listing on the Page 1 of Google more than once?  If you fail to bid on your…

• Say what now?: 25 quotable things overheard at #ID2013

  Chris Mowder

  20 May 2013 | 6:04 pm

  Whether they’re tweeting, blogging, sharing or just googling each other endlessly, it’s a well-known fact that digital marketers have a lot to say. So it’s no surprise that there was tons of great information spread around during the inaugural Interactivity Digital conference in South Beach Miami last week. But despite all the great, actionable ideas and tantalizing tactics shared, some of the most impactful moments of the event were quotes, given by an amazing slate of speakers that included Rand Fishkin, Peter Shankman, Marty Weintraub and some of the top names in the digital…

• #ID2013 Recap: 60 Digital Marketing resources shared in South Beach

  Chris Mowder

  20 May 2013 | 12:21 pm

  The first-ever Interactivity Digital event is in the books, but before the memories — aka hangovers — of South Beach fade away into the fast-moving landscape of the digital marketing world, we’re taking a quick look back at some of the amazingly useful information shared during the event. From choice quotes shared by an amazing lineup of speakers to the colorful sights of South Beach the Interactivity Digital Liveblog caught much of the action during the two-day event. But for those who missed out on a chance to follow along with the action live, we’ve compiled a great list of some of…

• 10 Great resources for beginning content marketers

  Chris Mowder

  15 May 2013 | 12:14 pm

  Recently, I officially turned the page on my career as a print journalist and jumped full force into a new life as a marketing professional by providing my perspective on the connection between the two industries and why media outlets should function more like marketing agencies. As I’ve dived head first into the world content marketing and begun to wade my way through the vast ocean of marketing knowledge available online, I’ve been simply amazed how much great info is available out there. It’s been awesome to see how many marketers are willing to connect with others in the industry,…

• Content Marketing: A solution to the journalist’s advertorial dilemma

  Chris Mowder

  8 May 2013 | 8:22 pm

  As long as anyone can remember there’s been an debate raging in newsrooms across the country about the church vs. state-like separation between the editorial and advertising departments. Having spent most of my 10 years in newspapers as an artist, however, I was always more concerned with slick visuals and delivering a clear message than I was with engaging in conversation about stodgy old ethical standards created way before the Interenet came along and changed the game of journalism forever. In case you’re not familiar with it, here’s how the argument generally goes:…