Managing PPC Accounts: Improving Bounce Rates

Paid advertising has morphed into so much more than buying some traffic until your SEO can sustain  your site. There are now software programs that can create a unique landing page for (thousands of) keywords on the fly, specifically designed to address the keyword phrase the user typed into the query box and the ad they selected and clicked. Although worth the money, the investment in these programs sometimes escapes the marketing budgets of smaller companies. The argument for better conversion rates is sometimes enough to convince you, or your client, to make the leap. I find that the hi [...]

Filed in: In The Trenches


John Battelle On The Future Of Search

As soon as I decided I wanted to explore the question of where search was going, I knew sooner or later I had to talk to John Battelle. John wrote what I still consider the definitive look at the industry, The Search, in 2005. Since then, in addition to running Federated Media, he has continued to be one of the more thoughtful, visionary, frank and opinionated voices in this space. Recently, his musings have taken on a decided tone of discontent. In a few recent blog posts, Battelle mused that search, while not necessarily “broken," may indeed be increasingly falling short of our expecta [...]

Filed in: Just Behave


Anatomy Of A Google Snippet

Let's deconstruct the Google snippet in all its glory -- from the Posts/Authors/Last Post line, to the document date, to the Keywords in Context ("KWIC"), to the ellipses, to the inside-the-snippet anchor links. But before we do, it would probably be a good idea to define the term snippet. Google defines a snippet as "a description of or an excerpt from the webpage" that follows the title and precedes the URL and Cached link. Simply put, the snippet refers to the description portion of a Google search listing. It doesn't include the title, nor does it include the URL. Google engineer Matt C [...]

Filed in: 100% Organic - Search Engine Optimization Tips, How To: SEO


Research: The Key To SMB Knowledge

Having just returned from SMX West, I found my brain teeming with topic snippets related to online search marketing. SEO, trademark usage, display and search ad combo campaigns, the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal, mobile ads, and so many more. While the range of topics was vast, all of them fell within the spectrum of online marketing. And in this vast array of online marketing topics, one aspect kept popping up regardless of the theme of the session I was attending: research. Research: what is it good for? On its face, research sounds a bit intimidating. And it can be. Taken to ultimate levels, [...]

Filed in: Small Is Beautiful


Five Keys For Creating Viral YouTube Titles

As with text web pages, from an SEO standpoint the title of your YouTube video is the most important piece of content on the page. Well, to be fair, the most important piece of content is actually the video itself, but for the purpose of this discussion, let’s assume that the video is at least moderately watchable and entertaining. Every YouTube video resides on its own page and has a unique URL. YouTube creates HTML meta tags for each of these video view pages based on different page elements. The title of the video becomes the title tag, the description becomes the meta description tag, [...]

Filed in: Search Engines: Video Search Engines, Video Search


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