There's absolutely no doubt that social networks continue to play an increasingly important part in many people's lives. EMarketer predicts there will be a massive 1.43 billion social network users in 2012, representing a 19.2 percent increase over 2011 figures. At some point we're bo...
Whether you're a veteran or a rookie online marketer, it's imperative to audit your website and blog to ensure it has been optimized for social interaction, discussion and sharing. Applying social media optimization (SMO) to your content isn't rocket science, but amidst other marketin...
Howdy, SEOmoz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we are trying to help you overcome the winter of your discontent, meaning, well, really the winter of your dis-content. You see, I hear a lot of people talking in the industry about the challenge of suc...
Some keywords have seasonal trending, search volume life-cycles, and hype spikes. When you need to rank during the peak of these trends, organic ranking requires you to do most of your work before the peak. Riding the waves of search volume hype is hard, but it can also be very reward...
So, beyond the macro-conversion of a sale, there are several other goals that should be tracked. But guess what? Most companies are not tracking those additional goals. When they analyze their traffic sources and campaigns, they simply see revenue. That’s unfortunate, because several ...
In my last column, I created a Web searcher behavior quiz to demonstrate the complexity of query (keyword) classification. I admit that it was a tough quiz. But I made it tough for a reason. When it comes to keyword classification and context, it is far too easy to inject our personal...
As they promised they would, the adCenter product team continues to deliver important improvements at an impressive pace. People are beginning to be given the heads up on the imminent release for the U.S. market of another feature that brings adCenter even closer to Google AdWords par...
Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (MAI), the Excel add-on for keyword research and optimization, is getting an upgrade — jumping all the way from version 5.6 to version 8. The company says the new version brings in more finely-tuned data from the Yahoo-Bing network on a wider range o...
Contextual links from externally distributed content – cite your extensive free lessons whenever you contribute to other blogs through guest blogging. Place the links within your guest posts’ content and always vary your links’ anchor texts. You can also link to them through the other...
that suggested that Facebook page owners shouldn’t post more than 1x every 3 hours. Our friend Dan Zarrella found that users don’t like it when a brand spams the feed. To me, this includes personal brands, but really the amount of posting that is deemed “okay” is up in the air. All I ...
Yahoo search users in the UK, Ireland and France will start to see ads from Microsoft’s adCenter next week, as the two companies wrap up the transition that began in 2009 with the MSFT-Yahoo search alliance . As part of the transition, search advertisers that are still on Yahoo’s plat...
If you’ve been around digital marketing long enough you have probably witnessed the “display versus search” argument multiple times. The display team likes to call out search’s focus on brand terms, while the search team likes to bring up “post-impression” as the savior to all things ...
April 15th marks the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and there will be no shortage of news coverage (or hype) commemorating the event this weekend. The good news is that if you want even more information, facts, images and history, you can take a deep dive on the web ...
Web companies and designers are going to LOVE this one! TopWebDesignSchools.org released this infographic, The Anatomy of a Horrible Web Design Client . This infographic has some great humor, rules to protect yourself and some stats on web designers. So check it out and have a happy F...
MDG Advertising’s inforgraphic Is Personalized Search Getting Too Personal? is based on the data from a study by Pew Research’s Internet and American Life Project that discussed what users perceive and believe about the impact of personalized search. MDG Advertising says the IG shows:...
Lighting is as important as content when it comes to quality of the video you’re making. Improper lighting means you don’t know what you’re doing and will quickly show the viewer exactly that. It also totally destroys picture quality and instantly makes it grainy unless you’ve got som...
In Depth: Search Gear For The Titanic Centennial April 15th marks the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and there will be no shortage of news coverage (or hype) commemorating the event this weekend. The good news is that if you want even more information, facts, images ...
Along with Google AdWords, it seems like the common denominator in every search marketer’s tool stack is Microsoft Excel. But for years, technology vendors in the search marketing industry have vowed to get us out of workbooks and have built workflow, analytics, and reporting tools ai...
Looking for a job doing SEM / PPC work? As with SEO , New York is the leading city based on job volume. But Chicago takes the second spot, unlike LA which leads second with SEO jobs. San Jose, Austin and Seattle are other leading cities. Those doing paid search earn anywhere from $35,...
is extremely popular among the smoking elite today. When famous actor Seth Rogan confessed International Oddities buds were used in the now classic weed picture Pineapple Express, marijuana advocates and tobacco connoisseurs alike were equally intrigued. With the appearance of herbal ...
Convincing visitors to share your blog posts on social media sites isn't really hard. It's more a matter of moving barriers out of their way and making it easy for them to share like setting your dog's food and water bowls at a comfortable height for him. So let's take a look at wha...
Over the past few months I’ve talked about personalized video ads from products like Mixpo’s SmartVideo and now Eyeview , who’s been pulling down some serious investor cash to develop its personalized video advertising technology which has not caught on among auto industry leaders lik...
About a month ago, Google announced they turned off certain link factors but didn't say specifically which ones. We ran a poll asking which link factors did Google turn off ? One of the responses I did not list was "anchor text" because I felt there was no way Google would turn off th...
About a month ago, we ran a poll asking Does Google Search Quality Use Data From Other Departments (i.e. Analytics, AdWords, etc)? I am honestly shocked to see that 82% of those who answered the poll do not believe Google when they say they do not use this type of data for search rank...
Identify you goals. What does success look like? Are you working on a keyword link? Name recognition? Authority building? Identify your target. Make it worth your while. Ensure the target supports set goals you've set. Audit the content of the site. Take about 15-20 minutes to preform...
About 6 months ago, I ran a poll asking webmasters which they prefer, Google or Bing Webmaster Tools . Since I am offline today, I figured I'd publish a bunch of poll results in order to keep you all busy. The winner of that poll was Google Webmaster Tools, where a overwhelming majori...
Case studies are not always easy to put together, and there is a lot of work involved in making sure they fit your business and your product, but they're a great way to share a different perspective of your product that potential customers may not be able to get from just walking into...
Right after the new year, Google was caught in a paid link scandal and they handled it by penalizing Chrome in the Google search results for a little over 60 days. That penalty is now lifted but I wanted to share the poll where we asked "Are You Satisfied With Google's Response On Chr...
A few months ago, I ran a poll asking if it is required for SEOs to have their sites participate in social sharing elements in order to compete in the search results. I personally felt, with the value Google is placing on Google+ and the value Bing is placing on Facebook likes, social...
Phil Rogers posted a picture on Flickr of the famous Google Streetview Trike. But this picture captured the back side of the bike, showing a red and black box inside. Phil posted this yesterday. This post is part of our daily Search Photo of the Day column, where we find fun and inter...
