Apple

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 29, 2013

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: 5 Simple Ways To Debug Your Google Analytics Installation As you might guess, we QA a lot of Google Analytics installs. It is often a maddening task that makes you want […]

Google

Google Shopping Visibility Plunges In “Universal Search” Results; Video Stays Dominant

Findings from a new study show the visibility of Google Shopping in Google’s “Universal Search” results dropped significantly after the search engine implemented a new paid inclusion model. Video content also dropped but still remained by far the most dominant source mixed with web page listings. Searchmetrics, a provider of search and social analysis software, conducted the […]

Apple

Apple Hiring ‘Ground Truth’ Managers To Improve Maps

If job listings are any indication, Apple remains committed to improving its iOS Maps app. As the iDownload Blog spotted, Apple currently has seven job listings for what’s called a “Maps Ground Truth Manager.” The positions are based around the world — U.S., Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia-Pacific, the Americas and Middle East/Africa. The […]

Google Analytics

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 28, 2013

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Report: PPC Tablet Spending Up 112%, Smartphones Up 113% The new IgnitionOne Digital Marketing Report for Q1 finds that overall paid search spend in the U.S. was flat for the quarter, […]

Content

Report: PPC Tablet Spending Up 112%, Smartphones Up 113%

The new IgnitionOne Digital Marketing Report for Q1 finds that overall paid search spend in the U.S. was flat for the quarter, while mobile and tablet growth remained strong. Tablet spending rose 112% and smartphone spending jumped 113%. The study suggests that the growth in tablet and mobile is coming from a reallocation from existing […]

LinkedIn

Do You Really Need An Agency To Help Manage Large Campaigns?

The in-house versus agency debate is largely over because for 90% of businesses, it is no longer possible to run a significant (large budget/large volume) online marketing program without agency help. Since I’m an online marketing agency CEO, it’d be fair of you to accuse me of bias and self-interest in making this statement, but […]

Advertising

CPC Decline Ends: Rising 7% In Q1 Due To Mobile & PLAs [Covario]

We may have seen the end of CPC stagnation. Covario’s Global Paid Search Spend Analysis for Q1, released today, suggests that the cost-per-click trends of the last six quarters have reversed with CPC prices rising 7% from the previous quarter and 23% year-over-year. Overall paid search spend grew 9% quarter-over-quarter and 33% year-over-year. The following […]

Content

As News Publications Experiment With Sponsored Content, Google Says Keep It Out Of Google News

News publications having “sponsored content “deals are on the rise, and Google’s apparently concerned enough that it’s issued a warning today that publishers should keep such content out of Google News. In a post today on the Google News blog, the company writes: If a site mixes news content with affiliate, promotional, advertorial, or marketing […]

Bing

Bing Adds Search Filter To Sort Results By Time Period

Bing has added a search filter that gives users the opportunity to limit search results to three recent time periods: Past 24 hours Past week Past month The options appear directly below the search box on Bing’s search results page. It’s a welcome addition, but one that Google has had for a long time now. […]

Apple

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 27, 2013

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Need A Google Alerts Replacement? Meet Talkwalker With Google Alerts coming under fire as being broken, an impressive new service has stepped up to appeal to those seeking an alternative: Talkwalker. […]

Google

Need A Google Alerts Replacement? Meet Talkwalker

With Google Alerts coming under fire as being broken, an impressive new service has stepped up to appeal to those seeking an alternative: Talkwalker. Luxembourg-based Talkwalker is a social media monitoring company that has now released its own keyword-based alerts resource. The free service utilizes Google’s Web, news, and blog databases and delivers alerts by email or RSS. So, are […]

SEO

Search On Smartphones Up 26 Percent, On Tablets Up 19 Percent In 2012 [Study]

Search continues to shift away from the desktop toward mobile devices. That’s one of the conclusions of the just-released Neustar Localeze/15miles/comScore Local Search Study, which is now in its sixth year. This year’s study involves a sample of more than 3,000 U.S. adults that say they use the Internet to search for local businesses. Results […]

Google

Author Rank, Authorship, Search Rankings & That Eric Schmidt Book Quote

Last month, an excerpt from Eric Schmidt’s forthcoming book came out where he discussed how identity and authorship might be used to better rank search results. Since then, I’ve seen that widely cited as proof Google is already doing “Author Rank.” It’s not, nor was Schmidt describing a Google-specific system. But that could come, and […]

SEO

Survival Tips For Becoming An In-House SEO

As my friends know, in January, I became an in-house SEO. Now that I have a few weeks under my belt, I thought I’d discuss some of the differences between agency SEO and in-house SEO, the type of traits it takes to succeed in-house, and some of the traps you can land in. Agency vs. In-house […]

PPC

3 Real-Life ‘Programmatic’ Executions & What They Mean To You

Firstly, as a quick refresher, the terms ‘big data’ and ‘programmatic’ sound more complex than they are! In my last article, Why Do Big Data & Programmatic Marketing Actually Matter?, I described how big data can simply be thought of as ‘more data,’ and that having more data makes us smarter marketers. Using more data […]

Google Shopping

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 26, 2013

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: How To Create A Sustainable Link Plan I’ve recently spoken with three business owners who have approached me in a fairly atypical way: instead of asking me for a proposal, they’ve […]

Content

How To Create A Sustainable Link Plan

I’ve recently spoken with three business owners who have approached me in a fairly atypical way: instead of asking me for a proposal, they’ve given me theirs. It’s been a fascinating glimpse into the dangers of thinking that just because you read a lot about link building (and by and large, most people who tell […]

SEO

CheapAir.com Mobile Voice Search Not Very “Natural”

Several sites are touting a new voice search feature on the CheapAir.com app. The company says that it uses the iPhone’s own speech recognition capability on the front end, but then does some semantic parsing on its side to deliver flight search results. I tried the app and found that its voice search fell quite […]

SEO

7 Steps To Kicking Off A New Content Strategy

Have you ever had a formal content strategy for your website? Are you considering a website refresh? During the process of website redesign is the perfect time to renew your content marketing approach; we’re leading several of our clients through this right now. As they’re all at various stages and have various requirements for the […]

SEO

SEO Opportunities Begin Well Before New Website Development

Launching a new site, or any major site update, for a large enterprise comes with some unique challenges. A short summary of some of the most common include those listed below. SEO Challenges: New Site Launch Or Major Updates Too many decision makers. This is one of the more basic headaches. Product marketing, engineering, PR […]

Content

Google Streamlines AdWords Rules On Using Trademark Keywords

Google has announced an update to its AdWords trademark policy that streamlines the rules on using third-party trademark keywords in campaigns. With the update, Google now has a consistent global policy that allows advertisers to bid on competitor third-party trademark keywords. The update states: “Starting on 23 April 2013, keywords that were restricted as a result […]

Google Maps

7 Reasons Why Local Businesses Should Still Buy PPC Ads

Many small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) focus heavily on their organic search rankings. After all, it’s “free,” and if you enjoy a high ranking, you can derive excellent business from it. But, even if your business ranks well in local search (and especially if you don’t), there are great reasons to consider some paid search advertising, aka […]

Google Ads

Google Shopping Ads: What We’ve Learned So Far

In October 2012, Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) became Google Shopping. With this, Google removed the Google Shopping listings from the organic side of the equation and made them a purely PPC play. Many people, including Danny Sullivan, have noted that Google has now embraced a paid inclusion model. Things have certainly changed, and advertisers […]

Apple

Apple Buys Indoor Location Company, What’s It Up To?

This weekend the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had paid roughly $20 million for a company called WifiSLAM. The company was an early stage startup that had raised roughly $1 million in angel investment. It appears to have had some ambitious plans, according to a company description on AngelList: We are building the next […]

Google

Google Finally Discontinues The Blocked Sites Feature

After over a year of the blocked sites feature not working, Google has officially declared they are discontinuing the feature — two months after Google promised it would return. Google introduced blocked sites in March 2011 after struggling with various ways to allow searchers to block sites from showing in the search results. Google has […]

Facebook

Facebook Graph Search Now Passing Keyword Data To Webmasters

When Facebook launched Graph Search earlier this year, a noticeable element missing to marketers was the lack of keyword data that was passed. Well, this weekend Glenn Gabe of G-Squared Interactive uncovered the fact that Facebook has begun passing keyword data within referral strings. The keyword data is passed from Facebook with a query string [q={keyword}] appended […]

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