Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: A/B Testing From Search To ConversionAs I mentioned in a previous post, search marketers should work on finding the middle ground between a high CTR (appealing ads) and a high conversion rate (qualified traffic). This process is trickier than it seems because of the inverse relationship between those two metrics. In this article, I’ll share a couple of thoughts which [...] Want To Speak @ SMX West? Here’s HowThe agenda is live, and we’re n [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

As I mentioned in a previous post, search marketers should work on finding the middle ground between a high CTR (appealing ads) and a high conversion rate (qualified traffic). This process is trickier than it seems because of the inverse relationship between those two metrics. In this article, I’ll share a couple of thoughts which I hope you'll find helpful when testing multiple ad copy and landing pages for your PPC program. Get Your Campaign & Ad Group Ready Once you have a fairly mature keyword list, you should be able to easily identify those top cost keywords with a Quality Sco [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Search & Conversion

The agenda is live, and we’re now accepting submissions to speak at Search Marketing Expo – SMX West, March 11-13, 2013, at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.. To increase the odds of being selected, be sure to read the agenda. Understand what the sessions are about. Ensure that your pitch is on target to the show’s audience and the session. Please also be very specific about what you intend to cover. Also, if you do not see a particular session listed, this is because there are no openings for that session. Use this form to submit your request. As you might guess, interes [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | SEM Industry: Search Marketing Expo - SMX

Just over three months ago, Google launched the news keyword meta tag designed to let news publishers have a better chance of ranking for words they might not have included in their headlines. Adoption rate so far? Only about 5% of the sources within Google News use the tag, according to new data provided by Blekko. Last month, I'd asked Google how many publishers were using the tag. It declined to answer. But rival search engine Blekko crawls the web and is able to spot what pages have the news keywords tag. Blekko has released a report showing how many pages and sites across the web have [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: News | Google: News Keywords Tag | Top News

[caption id="attachment_143052" align="alignright" width="300"] Image via Shutterstock[/caption] 2012 has been another big year for digital. And in such a fast changing industry, how do we really expect everyone to keep up? Being ahead of the game on the topics that matter will put you head and shoulders above the competition, so take the quiz below and see how you would fare. Then check out my responses below to see if you agree – extra points for disagreeing and commenting with your own opinions. What is the difference between Search Retargeting and Site Retargeting? How/Whe [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display

Goodbye 2012, hello 2013. For my last column of the year, I'm selecting five link building myths that I hope go away completely in 2013, and giving my rationale as to why they should be gone. The only reason I'm picking five is because it's the day after Christmas, and if I had written about all 500 myths I wish would vanish, you would not be reading this. Five seems like a digestible number in a post-holiday haze, so grab an Eggnog and let's get to them. 1.  Infographics Are Awesome For Link Building Completely true and completely false, because they completely ignore the larger point. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Week

SEOMoz's recent acquisition of GetListed has got me thinking -- there's a dangerous trend going on in the SEO Tools market. I call it the SMB Death March. [caption id="attachment_143172" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Image courtesy of GapingVoidArt.com[/caption] SEO Tool Market The SEO Tool market has exploded over the past couple of years, and with good reason. These days, it seems like most businesses understand that showing up in Google is critical. More and more marketers have had some experience with SEO, either on their own or via consultants. Hollywood is using SEO as a pri [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

As I write this piece, the Mayan calendar is about to end bringing about the demise of everything. So, if you're reading this, we survived and the predictions were wrong. Predicting the future is always tricky, but I'm going to have a go at predicting 2013 in the confidence that more of what I say here is likely to happen, than the Mayans were ever able to predict! The graphic below illustrates who I'm predicting will be the winners and losers (you can check back with me in a year's time to see how I did) and more of an explanation follows! Don't forget, I'm always talking about the global [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Multinational Search

Google seems to be testing a new feature named "Quick View" in their smart phone enabled search results. The feature lets you load a page from the source web site in a quicker method, instead of loading the full page, which might require longer download time. Here is a picture of searching for [seo] on an iPhone 5 where a Wikipedia result shows a big blue button for "Quick View": When you click on the "Quick View" button, you are taken to a light-weight version of the page, maybe the mobile version of Wikipedia? Wissam Dandan discovered this and shared it on Google+. I have [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: Web Search | Top News

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Where’s Santa Claus? The 2012 Santa Tracker List, From NORAD To Google, From The Web To AppsIt’s Christmas Eve, and Santa Claus is on his annual trip delivering presents to all the good little boys and girls around the world. This year, not just one but two major organizations are offering ways to track Jolly St. Nick on his flight. Below, our annual review of how to track him by the [...] Mobile Search After The Final Mayan B’ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

It's Christmas Eve, and Santa Claus is on his annual trip delivering presents to all the good little boys and girls around the world. This year, not just one but two major organizations are offering ways to track Jolly St. Nick on his flight. Below, our annual review of how to track him by the web, by app or even through a telephone call. The Santa Tracking Sites You can find the two major Santa tracking sites this year here: NORAD Tracks Santa Google Santa Tracker Below, more about using both of the sites, including related apps or even an email-for-location feature that NORAD [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Google: Santa Tracker | NORAD Tracks Santa | Search Engines: Santa Tracker

[caption id="attachment_142761" align="alignright" width="209"] Google Nexus 4 / Mayan Calendar from Peta-de-aztlan, Creative Commons[/caption] If you are reading this Search Engine Land column, then you survived the "final day" of the Mayan Calendar as the 13th B'ak'tun resets to 0 like an odometer after 1,872,000 days, and with it, the start of the 5th world, according to Mayan culture. This 5th world is said to be one of enlightenment, higher consciousness, and great transformation, which in my view, could only mean a concerted focus on mobile...for those that remain. Perhaps th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Mobile | Mobile Search | Search Engines: News Search Engines | SEO: Mobile Search

In the world of search engine optimization, Enterprise SEO is an odd bird. Most professional SEOs cut their teeth for years in agencies or independent consulting, doing a jack-of-all-trades level of work. [caption id="attachment_142838" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Image via Shutterstock[/caption] As a result, they are used to digging into source code issues, optimizing individual landing pages for content and metadata, running a variety of detailed, hands-on social media campaigns, running deep analysis on their customer’s Web analytics data, and much, much more. You’d think the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

I’m back to writing my own controversial thoughts this month; although, if you didn’t check out the interview I did last month with Andrew Goodman and Matt van Wagner, you should, those are smart guys. Since I was thinking about PPC and how incredibly mixed up and difficult it has become, it seemed like a good time to write about it. My team and I are trying to figure out ways to look at PPC campaigns differently, finding a way to automate some of the grunt work while still delivering great campaigns. I know everyone and their brother has done this, but we’re convinced we can do it [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: AdWords | Google: Analytics | How To: PPC | How To: SEM | Paid Search

Google is featuring a Google logo, aka Doodle, for the holiday season this morning. The logo is incredibly happy and festive, with lots of colors and Christmas like characters and activities within the logo that makes up the letters in Google's name. The logo can be found worldwide today, December 24th, on Christmas Eve. But when I peek ahead at Google Australia, where it is already Christmas day, I currently do not see a special holiday logo for Christmas. Maybe Google will surprise us? Like every year, there is some concern that Google doesn't say "Merry Christmas" as opposed to "H [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos

The notion that Google Maps drove a rash of iOS 6 upgrades turns out to be wrong according to ad network Chitika. As several people have already argued, iOS 6 traffic growth more likely came from the release of the iPhone 5 in China (Apple said it sold 2 million handsets over the initial weekend). Mobile ad exchange MoPub earlier this week suggested a large contingent of Apple iPhone owners who hadn't yet upgraded from iOS 5 to iOS 6 were prompted to do so by the release of the new Google Maps app. That story seemed to fit with the immense anticipation and interest, among tech writers, [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Official: It’s Google Panda Update 23, Impacting ~1.3% Of QueriesGoogle has confirmed rumors of a Google update announcing on Twitter that they pushed out a Panda data refresh today impacting about 1.3% of English queries. This would make for the 23rd Panda update since the first Panda algorithm was introduced on February 24, 2011. Since then we had 22 updates both to the algorithm [...] Search In Pics: Google Menorah, Google Aura & G [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Google has confirmed rumors of a Google update announcing on Twitter that they pushed out a Panda data refresh today impacting about 1.3% of English queries. This would make for the 23rd Panda update since the first Panda algorithm was introduced on February 24, 2011. Since then we had 22 updates both to the algorithm and also to the index or data refreshes. The latest impacted 1.3% of the queries, whereas version 22 impacted only 0.8% of English queries. We did see signs of a major update a week ago but Google told us there was no such update. Then again, I reported early signs of an [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: Panda Update | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Panda Update News | Top News

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. Google Aura: Source: Google+ Google Scooter: Source: Google+ Wooden Google+ Pen: Source: Google+ Google Water Bottles: Source: Google+ GooglePlex Menorah: Source: Google+ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search In Pictures

In August, Google introduced a field test that brings Gmail content in your search results. So if you searched for [my flights] and you had a flight confirmation email in your Gmail account, Google would show you upcoming flights. This is still an opt in field test available to a limited number of US users but Google has announced they have expanded it to cover searches for purchases/orders, event registrations, and hotel reservations. Google said, "you can now search for [my purchases] to see a list of recent online purchases from select merchants and track the packages to see if they†[...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Gmail | Google: Gmail Search Field Trial | Google: Personalized Search | Google: Search Plus Your World | Google: Web Search | Top News