SEO Everything you need to know about SEO, delivered every Thursday. Google is telling their Site Search customers they have to find a new internal search engine service. on February 21, 2017 at 6:18 pm More Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land that they are discontinuing support for Google…

One of the more loaded questions we hear from execs at our SaaS company is, “How is Marketing doing this month?” Fair question. For B2B marketers who work with lead generation and conversion tracking, the answer beyond “great” may be tricky to communicate, based on whom we’re talking to and all the…

Numbers don’t lie. When it comes to the popularity and overall value of your business, it’s important to have a solid Alexa Ranking. Why? It’s a common metric that potential business partners, investors, etc. will use to determine the state of your business. They’ll use it to gauge your business’s…

Forrester estimates that companies allocate about 30% of their marketing budget to online. It’s trending upwards, gaining roughly 1% per year. That’s means that offline marketing spend will continue to outspend online for the next couple decades. So if you’re like most companies spending the bulk of…

Analytics is integral to refining the customer experience. Research shows that “ 90% of business managers believe analytics has the ability to improve sales, and another 62% report they believe analytics can increase sales by more than 20%.” Examining the data offers the chance to learn what you did…

Blogging sucks. Okay that’s a bit extreme. In fact, there’s a lot that I enjoy about blogging—mainly connecting with you guys. But what does suck is having to constantly come up with new ideas for blog posts. It’s a grind that can be quite exhausting, especially if you’re simply coming up with ideas…

Before we get started, let’s get one thing straight: If the product or service your company offers doesn’t live up to your customers’ expectations, your business isn’t going to get very far. That being said, it’s important to note that the quality of your product or service isn’t the only factor…

Seasonal traffic trends have a tremendous impact on websites, and businesses need to take full advantage of the traffic spikes surrounding specific seasons and holidays — particularly those that are relevant to their products and services. For example, with Google Trends , we can see interest in the…

The best thing about Google Analytics is also the worst thing: there’s a massive amount of available data. Why is that both good and bad? You can use that data to improve and understand. Your traffic. Your audience behavior . Your goals. Your marketing. That’s good. But because there’s just so much…

You don’t need me to tell you how potent content marketing is. I could spout off a laundry list of stats, e.g., “ conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters” or “content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as…

As a co-founder of an eCommerce startup in a highly competitive industry, I quickly realized that we had to move beyond the basics of marketing optimization and test some advanced techniques to improve our ROI. After much trial and error, we found few tactics that were really effective. Although our…

Industry Get the best search news, tips and resources, delivered each day. Join Scott Brinker for this live webinar on February 14, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PST) on February 10, 2017 at 5:51 pm More Most marketers still look at digital as a marketing channel. But digital is no longer just a…

Emotions guide nearly every facet of our lives. And it’s no different when it comes to what we choose to buy. Our purchasing decisions are largely guided by emotions rather than cold logic or stark objectivity. Some experts even suggest that “90 percent of all purchasing decisions are made…

You’ve seen the stats before. 1-2% conversion rates for websites. Which means 98-99% ain’t buying. For one reason or another. A bigger chunk of that is bouncing; leaving your site almost immediately after getting there. You work so hard (and spend so much) on getting them there in the first place,…

Customer acquisition is arguably the most important aspect of business operations. Before you can even think about retention and having loyal, long-term customers, you need that initial acquisition to take place. But the process of turning leads into paying customers comes with a lot of twists and…

Sales decreasing? Most companies experience a temporary slump during their existence. But don’t panic. Take practical steps to move your company forward. When sales start declining, be mindful of what’s going right and what needs improvement. As an ecommerce business, it may be time to upgrade your…

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 local knowledge panel testing promotion box Feb 2, 2017 by Barry Schwartz Google is testing a new Google local knowledge panel layout with owners…

We live in a world of digital data. We create it. We consume it. It’s everywhere. And it’s accumulating at an unprecedented pace. In fact, experts predict that we’ll be adding 50,000 gigabytes every single second by 2018. That’s a whole lot of tweets, snaps, and posts. But data goes beyond just…

One of the greatest struggles content marketers face right now is creating engaging content. More than 70% of marketers have made it a top priority this year to address that and make stronger connections with their audiences. I think a primary cause for that struggle is that we’re only just a few…

Writing online content is something of a balancing act. For years, SEO experts have pointed out that Google loves longer content. Your readers? Not necessarily. As a writer, that means you’re kind of stuck in the middle. Write too little, and your content won’t rank. Write too much, and most people…

It’s true. Your customers don’t care about your product. Don’t worry, they don’t care about your competitor’s products either. Your customers don’t care about any products. Thankfully, your customers do care about something, which is why they buy your product. Your customers care about the progress…

2017 is here! I get excited with the changing of each year because it always presents new opportunities and new ways to improve both in marketing and in life in general. It also gives me motivation to make any adjustments I need to be a better marketer. Of all the forms of online marketing, I think…

The average social media manager gets paid roughly $47,190 . They tweet, post, share, like, favorite, comment, and reply to make sure your company’s social media is covered. Some companies use social media differently. Slack, for instance, uses Twitter to communicate the brand and notify followers…

Pinterest created something to do with the 8 million football party ideas and 58 million football ideas users have saved prior to Super Bowl LI Feb. 5. The social network developed the Pinterest MVPP: Most Valuable Party Planner microsite, sponsored by Sargento, which enables users to create custom…

By on Jan. 27, 2017 - 3:35 PM Brands looking for the most effective ways to market via LinkedIn can now follow the example of a company that knows a little something about LinkedIn: LinkedIn. The professional network teamed up with Column Five on an infographic containing information from new e-book…

Regardless of the size of your brand or your business, there are many methods to capture social media views. There is a lot of advice out there for marketers, much of which relates to shifting focus rather than getting started. A report from search-engine-optimization firm Higher Visibility explores…

In a surprising move that reflects modern viewing habits, the National Basketball Association recently announced that it is considering shortening the length of games due to the diminishing attention span of millennials. If this sounds like a problem isolated to basketball, it isn’t. Think about how…

How do brands decide when to ban someone from their social media accounts? What are the criteria? There’s a need for brands to have social media guidelines in place to discourage harassment and trolling, and then take action against those in violation of those guidelines. Recently, Twitter banned…

In 2011, Google’s Zero Moment of Truth report struck fear into the hearts of marketers and companies alike with its finding that the average consumer reviews 10.4 pieces of content before converting. What made this finding so scary? It underlined the importance of content to modern marketing…

Pinterest was the first of the major social network to release its Transparency Report for the second half of 2016, but its task is relatively easy compared to those of Facebook and Twitter. Why do we say that? Pinterest received a total of 46 government requests for user information from June…

In the old days of search marketing, it was about tricking the dumb robots –buy links, cloak, spin content, or whatever trick you could pull. And then came the old days of Facebook marketing (up through 2014), which was also about tricking the dumb robots –arb out placements available only via Power…

Facebook issued an update to its Privacy Basics portal in advance of Data Privacy Day Jan. 28. The social network introduced Privacy Basics in November 2014 , saying at the time that it offered interactive guides to answer the most frequently asked questions by users about how they could control…

Some Android users are starting to see the Slideshow feature Facebook introduced for its flagship iOS application last June (pictured to the right). Slideshow was actually born as part of Facebook’s stand-alone Moments app. As its name suggests, Slideshow enables users to combine multiple photos and…

Twitter released new stickers and a hashtag-triggered emoji to celebrate the Lunar New Year . With this update, users can share the Year of the Rooster emoji by tweeting one of the supported hashtags associated with the occasion. From now until Feb. 12, when users tweet hashtags such as…

Have you noticed improvements in speed when accessing Facebook via Google Chrome or Firefox? If you have, here’s why: Infrastructure engineer Ben Maurer and software engineer Nathan Schloss penned a detailed blog post about how Facebook worked with Google and Firefox parent Mozilla on performance…

How do “superfans” of television show behave on Twitter, and what should marketers do to tap them? Twitter teamed up with Vizeum and Dentsu Aegis Network to find out. Superfans were defined as those who rated their fandom of specific TV shows as a nine or 10 out of 10, and Twitter senior research…