While Facebook gets the lion’s share of attention, the overall adoption of social media is also lifting several sites to all-time traffic levels and there’s no sign that this will change anytime soon. According to a new comScore report, LinkedIn, Twitter and Tumblr — in addition to Facebook — all hit new highs for U.S. […]
Search and display can easily be classified as two separate industries, yet the crossover and interactions between them are substantial. Advertisers navigating the marketplace have the challenge of choosing where to spend their money, but due to the amount of data available to them via cookies tracking individuals wherever they go, and the ease of […]
Two and a half years after Chrome OS was first announced, Google’s Chromebook computers are finally hitting the stores, where consumers will decide if they’re going to be a hit or a miss. Here’s a look at “Chromebook Day.” Finally, Chromebooks Arrive Back on November 19, 2009, Google unveiled its plans for a new computer […]
Search engine optimization may not always be enough. Just because a web page ranks well in organic search results, for a particular keyword, does not guarantee optimal business results. Landing pages are essential to B2B internet marketing programs. Effective landing pages drive form submissions and generate business opportunities. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for landing […]
Earlier this month, Google released Google +1 buttons for websites. This seems like a good occasion to celebrate social conversion on landing pages — and provide you with the links and sample code to implement it in your own post-click marketing. By social conversion, we mean a social-oriented action that a user takes on one […]
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 Voice Search & Search By Image Comes To Desktops Mobile innovation is fueling Google’s search offerings for the desktop, as the company today announced two new search interfaces — Voice […]
Mobile innovation is fueling Google’s search offerings for the desktop, as the company today announced two new search interfaces — Voice and Image — inspired by mobile Voice Search and Google Goggles, respectively. With Voice Search for the desktop, which is a feature of the Chrome browser, users click a microphone icon in the search […]
At today’s Google Inside Search event in San Francisco, a number of new features were unveiled for both mobile and desktop search, which we’ll cover in detail across Search Engine Land. For mobile search, these changes are launching immediately for Android (version 2.2+) and iOS (version 4.0+) in 40 languages worldwide, including: Local icons on mobile […]
Google’s company-wide focus on speed has manifested itself today with another feature that makes the search experience faster. It’s called Instant Pages, and from watching the demo today, it’s an impressive addition to the Google search experience. Instant Pages is one of the many announcements that came from Google’s “Inside Search” event. How Google Instant […]
If you’re a marketing or advertising professional, then lately you’ve probably been running ads on Facebook or have heard the phrase ‘paid social’ or ‘Facebook ads’. That’s because according to eMarketer, social media is the fastest growing digital media channel. As impressive as that is, it doesn’t tell the whole story. First, let’s consider some […]
Everyone ready? Because the big day has arrived! Google’s “Inside Search” event begins today at 9:30am Pacific Time. OK, reset your expectations. It might not be that big. But I’ll be live blogging it, so stay tuned. The event was only announced a few days ago, and it’s anyone’s guess as to what’s happening. I’m […]
A popular Irish hotel has sued Google for defamation because Google’s autocomplete feature suggests to searchers that the hotel is in receivership. Searchers looking for the Ballymascanlon Hotel — a four-star property that’s reportedly one of the most popular wedding venues in northeast Ireland and is not in financial trouble — see “ballymascanlon hotel receivership” […]
Yesterday David Mihm was pointing out on Twitter that Google had created a number of new city sites or portals. They appear to be the phoenix rising out of the ashes of Hotpot. As I wrote yesterday on my own blog, this is Google’s effort to bring a number of initiatives together in a single […]
Searchers looking for local businesses on Google Maps can now see brief, descriptive characteristics as part of the primary business listing. And they’ll be seeing the same things soon on Google.com, Places search and Google Maps for mobile, too. Google’s announcement explains that the terms come from “sources all across the web, such as reviews, […]
How do you get around the fact that you don't speak the language but are still responsible for achieving your goals in a particular target market? Are there strategies you can adopt to help -- or pitfalls to watch out for?
In my column two months ago for Link Week, I described ways we can use what we know about pages that rarely link to us to our advantage when link building. Certain page-level characteristics are immediately identifiable as being a standard characteristic of sites that won’t link to us. This is most frequently big businesses, and sometimes […]
I innocently searched on “webhosting” this afternoon and saw this result, with an ad unit I’d never seen before: a coupon embedded in the ad copy. I knew that Google was testing “Offer Ads,” not to be confused with Google Offers, but I’d never seen one myself. If you click “view offer” you get the […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Facebook IPO Coming In 2012, Could Be Worth $100 Billion Everyone knows that Facebook is going public. When was the only question. Now it appears that it will be early next […]
Everyone knows that Facebook is going public. When was the only question. Now it appears that it will be early next year. Facebook apparently is being compelled go public by an obscure SEC rule that requires companies with 500 or more shareholders to start disclosing financial information even if they haven’t gone public. Thus Facebook […]
Google today confirmed the acquisition of display ad management firm Admeld, which we and others reported last week. Though Google didn’t disclose how much it paid for the buy, various news outlets said the deal was worth $400 million. Admeld provides technology and services that help large publishers optimize the inventory they’re offering, plugging into […]
Living in the old Italian neighborhood in Boston, I come across tourists everyday. It’s interesting to observe their behavior, particularly in a setting like Boston, which is famous for being a walking city. Most tourists already have a hotel booked by the time they arrive. They have a set timeframe, and a short list of […]
The panelists at last week’s “HardCore Local SEO” panel at SMX Advanced, Mike Ramsey of Nifty Marketing, Will Scott of Search Influence and David Mihm of GetListed, presented some excellent data on various tactical approaches to improving Google Place Page rankings. For today’s column, I thought it would be helpful to excerpt some of the […]
One of the major differences between Google and Facebook PPC advertising is the relative importance of images. In Facebook advertising, some experts say that certain elements of images in ads can make or break a campaign. In this article, I’ll cover images that convert well and various ways to effectively test Facebook images. Of course, […]
The importance of a combining SEO and SEM to optimize online performance is not a new idea. Paid advertising programs cannot be successful without top ranking natural search results and vice versa. That is why most large scale organizations typically have experts focused on each practice separately. Every once and a while, it’s important to […]
Who still uses yellow pages? San Francisco has even banned delivery without permission, assuming no one wants them. But a yellow pages industry group has a new survey saying that yellow pages are more trusted, more widely used and perceived by consumers to be more accurate when it comes to local information than search engines […]
Facebook is creeping towards the 700 million user mark, but Inside Facebook reports that Facebook’s U.S. and Canada based traffic and growth dropped in June. This marks the second straight month of lower growth in these areas for Facebook which is an unusual occurrence. The United States lost nearly 6 million Facebook users (down to 149.4 million […]
Google Operating System reports Google is testing a new search snippet, one that is displaying the site name as opposed to the destination URL under the search result’s description. Here is a screen shot from the blog: I personally cannot replicate the same behavior, what I see is the full destination URL in the search […]
When I last looked at Android phones in January, Verizon didn’t have a 4G phone. That’s since changed. Indeed, Verizon has three now. In this review, how I found two of them — the HTC ThunderBolt released in March and the Samsung Droid Charge released in May — measured up against each other. Before I […]
At this week’s SMX Advanced show, several sessions touched on a variety of advanced analytics theories and tactical tools to measure the impact of your website traffic, and improve ROI and user engagement metrics. Here’s a quick review of the key issues being discussed. Google Analytics Pilot Integration With Webmaster Tools Generally, there was excitement […]
Google has tweaked its policies for placing AdSense ads to curb abuse, going so far as to forbid the placement of its code in iFrames. Though the company acknowledges there are some valid uses of iFrames, it will require publishers using them to be explicitly granted an exception by Google. The policy change is likely […]
Heads up! Google’s got something search-related that will likely be announced next week. The company sent out invites to an “Inside Search” event happening next Tuesday. From the invite: Please join us at Inside Search, an event where Amit Singhal and other experts will take you through an under the hood look at Google Search, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Search Market Share Static, 2.2 Billion Local Queries On Google ComScore released its May 2011 search market share rankings this afternoon. The data essentially show no change from last month in […]
ComScore released its May 2011 search market share rankings this afternoon. The data essentially show no change from last month in terms of percentage distribution. Google gains a fraction of a point at Ask’s expense, while everyone else stays put. While share was largely unchanged query volumes were up roughly 5 percent across the board in May. […]
More than 24,199 pages of emails from the first 21 months of Sarah Palin’s term as Governor of Alaska were released today after an unsuccessful fight by the state to prevent their disclosure. About 30 news organizations paid to receive the 5 boxes of printed documents, and most are planning to scan the messages and […]
Keyword research tools are great, but they do not provide enough context for understanding searcher behaviors. Usability test scenarios can help SEO professionals better understand their target audience.
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.
At one time, quality score (QS) was the new kid on the block—the game changer of paid search marketing. Before Quality Score, the golden rule was in effect: he with the most gold, rules. Those of us with massive budgets during that time were able to achieve top positions with a simple bid increase. In […]
Practically every day some research firm somewhere in North America or Europe releases a forecast about how many widgets will be sold next year, or how large a given market is going to be in five years. And every day the overwhelming majority of those forecasts are poised to turn out wrong. In most cases […]
The results of a MerchantCircle survey targeting small business owners showed the prominence of social media in the local marketing mix, especially marketing on Facebook. When asked which marketing channels the businesses leveraged, the most popular answer was “the creation of a profile on a social network” with 40.9% of the vote. The creation of […]
In an apparent move to bolster its own ad sales efforts and provide services to large publishers, Google has reportedly made a $400 million purchase of Admeld, a company that builds technology to help ad sellers maximize the value of their inventory. Admeld has relationships with the Weather Channel, IDG TechNetwork, and large newspaper companies […]