The premise is simple – PPC and display are both media buys trying to achieve similar outcomes; both are forms of ‘bought media’ and now with display moving to a biddable environment both now require quantitative skill sets to manage them. It’s not a tough sell to convince a budget holder that a single agency […]
For many B2B and considered purchases, buyers go through several stages of evaluating the market and choosing a seller. Different stages naturally benefit from different kinds of landing pages and conversion strategies. Here, we’ll take a look at the very top of the funnel, to see how three different companies are handling early-stage interest on […]
The new Bing interface, with a healthy dose of social connections and discovery, is now live for all users. Bing’s announcement today says that anyone can access the new interface at www.bing.com/new, but you should also see a new message atop the Bing home page that invites you to try “the best search, now with […]
Keyword research can give you great insight into customer problems, needs, desires, and intent.I like to categorize keyword categories themselves into a total of *ten* funnel stages. After performing my initial keyword categorization (sort of into micro-categories), I like to categorize the categories themselves into a total of *ten* funnel stages I've developed, which are organized around a "problem/solution" mental model.
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 Glossary Of 15 Really Useful International Search Marketing Terms A conversation with a number of international search marketers recently showed that their range of experience ranged from expert to beginner, […]
A conversation with a number of international search marketers recently showed that their range of experience ranged from expert to beginner, despite their influential career positions. By the way, this doesn’t mean they weren’t all highly talented people – their routes to their positions were just very different. The discussion did make me realise the […]
I’ve written often about the dangers of ignoring social media in SEO (and vice versa), but I’m here today to write about another danger: ignoring social benefits in the traditional sales funnel. It’s frustrating that people continue to treat social media as an individual entity, a separate department, instead of a versatile tool. We shutter […]
If I learned one thing during my years as journalist, it was that headlines will make or break you. There’s probably a good number of you reading this solely because of this headline, but stay with me, people: There is a connection to link building. Earlier this month, I went to the Chick-fi-la Leadercast where Tim […]
It has been a long couple months for the search marketing community between the Penguin update, a Panda refresh, the link notifications and the parked domain bug – you guys need a laugh. Sam Applegate put together a hysterical parody video of Matt Cutts talking about how to achieve number one ranking in Google. The […]
Many webmasters have been desperately trying to fix poor SEO work done to a site thanks to the recent Penguin update targeting webspam and the bad link warnings sent from Google. The only current way to discredit a link is to have it removed as reverse nofollow functionality for webmasters simply doesn’t exist. One recent example of a link removal request was particularly […]
Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman are on the stage at SMX London to interview Amit Singhal. Amit is a Google Fellow, a honorary title reserved for Google’s most accomplished engineers, and he has spearheaded Google’s core ranking team since 2000. He’s also a key influencer of Search Plus Your World, Google’s search experience centered around […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Smartphone Bot Case Study: The Google Smartphone Bot On Holiday In Australia While Google’s new smartphone bot has been announced, it does not appear to be widely deployed yet; at least […]
While Google’s new smartphone bot has been announced, it does not appear to be widely deployed yet; at least that is what I said during a recent presentation in Sydney, where I had the pleasure of meeting Alistair Lattimore (Al). Al does CRO, SEO and agency management for Mantra Group, which is the second largest […]
I have been fielding a lot of calls from sites big and small that believe they got hit by Penguin, Google’s “over-optimization” algorithm. Or maybe it was Panda? Who knows? Traffic is down and everybody is freaking out. I have a particular soft spot in my heart for the small, local businesses that have been […]
Google is playing a sophisticated form of “head games” with antitrust regulators. A second legal report-cum-brief (embedded below) has appeared. It argues that antitrust challenges against Google are likely to fail because Google’s critics’ arguments lack legal merit and/or make little sense from a policy perspective. The report was written by lawyers from the Ammori […]
While there’s no arguing with the fact that Google’s Adwords program is the dominant player in the PPC industry, it’s by no means the only option when it comes to paying for website traffic. In fact, the size of the Google Adwords program creates a number of challenges for “small-time” webmasters. The service’s immense popularity […]
Majestic SEO announced a new set of link metrics they came up with that should give Google’s PageRank metric and SEOmoz’s MozRank a run for their money. Majestic SEO’s new metrics are named Flow Metrics and are grouped into two categories; trust flow and citation flow. Citation Flow is a number of predicting how influential […]
Kara Swisher at AllThingsD is reporting that embattled Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is going to step down for “personal reasons.” Swisher has one or more “moles” inside the company and consistently gets inside information — which generally turns out to be correct. Thompson’s “personal reasons,” as we all know, are: misrepresenting that he had a […]
Google has a special animated logo on their home pages worldwide to celebrate Mother’s Day. Below is both the animated and static version of the Mother’s Day logo. A special Happy Mother’s Day to all the search geek Mother’s out there! Google is not the only search engine with a logo, Bing, Yahoo and others […]
Apple’s Siri search feature for the iPhone 4S thinks the Nokia Lumia 900 is the best phone ever? Actually, it’s Wolfram Alpha that thinks this, based on all of four user reviews. While it’s a chuckle that Siri seemed to be recommending the Nokia, it’s a better reminder that Siri itself doesn’t answer questions but […]
Advertisers have long been able to simulate the results of bid changes at the keyword and ad group level, and, now, they can do so at the campaign level, as well, Google has announced. The change will allow advertisers to model changes even when there’s not enough data to do so at the keyword or […]
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 Big Data Changed Crime Fighting & Is Changing The Practice Of SEO In the mid 1990’s, New York city Mayor Rudolph Giuliani introduced a technology-based crime measurement system called CompStat. […]
In the mid 1990’s, New York city Mayor Rudolph Giuliani introduced a technology-based crime measurement system called CompStat. The system enabled Police leadership, for the first time, to discern crime trends and respond to crime fluctuations on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis rather than the limited incident-by-incident view they previously had. The system is credited with a […]
The case could easily be made that keyword list construction is the most vital part of the paid search marketing process. Yes, optimization is clearly a crucial component to profitable SEM, yet without the right keywords (and campaign/ad group structure), the chance for success drops dramatically. So, wouldn’t you think that after more than a […]
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.
Shari, are you crazy? Search engines don’t have emotions! What does emotional design have to do with SEO? A lot more than you might think.
It’s that time again: April comScore qSearch data are coming out tomorrow. But the financial analysts are releasing it first to their clients and others who’ve subscribed to their missives. According to our source, comScore will report that both Google and Bing have made small, incremental gains since last month and seen modest growth since last […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Snapshot, Sidebar Oh My: Live Blogging the Bing Search Summit Danny and I are here at the Bing Search Summit in San Francisco. For a comprehensive overview of the new Bing […]
Danny and I are here at the Bing Search Summit in San Francisco. For a comprehensive overview of the new Bing features, see Danny’s article on the “new Bing.” Microsoft’s Qi Lu has just taken the stage and is talking about the launch of the new Bing. He’s discussing the need to “reorganize the web […]
Earlier this year, Google made its results more social with Search Plus Your World. Now Bing has reshaped how it handles social information as part of its “The New Bing” launch. Which does better, Google’s blended search+search model or Bing’s more segregated approach. Let’s look at some examples. Hey Google, How’s New Girl? I thought I’d start […]
Bing announced a relaunch of its search engine today, with a big emphasis on bringing social into search. But wait! Didn’t Bing already have social as part of its search experience? Yes, but now the search engine hopes to do it better, especially by largely off-loading social elements into a new sidebar area. The new […]
Next month, I will speak at SMX Advanced as a member of the authority panel, so it makes sense to discuss authority in my column this month. Authority is a term that has been around as long as I can remember, probably longer than the term search engine optimization itself. That is because classic SEO […]
Microsoft is closing down their toll-free voice search program named Bing 411. I have confirmed the Bing 411 service is closing by calling the service and hearing immediately the message: Bing 411: On June 1st, we are discontinuing the Bing 411 service. There were reports of this via LiveSide where they said they “received a […]
In this column, we routinely write about some fairly advanced topics: Next-level optimization, automated bidding algorithms, hyper-targeted search campaigns, paid vs. organic search, etc. Lost in all this is the underlying discussion around the need to hit your financial goals. The majority of large enterprises engage in annual planning, which means that as SEM managers, […]
If you’re a retailer and want to boost traffic and conversions, an image SEO strategy using Pinterest can provide great results fairly quickly. Pinterest activity will not only increase your referral traffic, it can help you connect with your customers and prospects in a mutually beneficial way. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s the age […]
It’s been about two weeks since Google launched its Penguin Update. Google’s happy the new spam-fighting algorithm is improving things as intended. But some hurt by it are still wondering how to recover, and there remain concerns about “negative SEO” as a threat. I caught up with Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: 10 Great Adwords Options For Boosting Conversions We all know that Adwords is the most used system in the world to drive paid traffic to websites. The Adwords system is an […]
We all know that Adwords is the most used system in the world to drive paid traffic to websites. The Adwords system is an extensive system with a lot of complex options to optimize campaigns and increase conversions. Advanced PPC managers should already know all of these features, but beginners and intermediate level Adwords users […]
Last November, Google tested a new “Sources” section in its search results, in the third column where ads normally appear. It seems the testing is underway again, showing extended information about actors, films, musicians, people and more. It also seems likely everyone may see this extended information soon, and that it’s the “search refresh” the […]
With the intersection of Social and SEO happening at a rapid pace, now is the time when you need to lay the groundwork in your social campaign to capture SEO value. As a B2B marketer, one of the key benefits to your social campaign is in its ability to help influence the buyer journey across […]