When your job is to drive organic search engine traffic to a website (SEO Director/Manager/Ninja), you will inevitably need to prove your worth. There’s nothing like cold-hard-facts to paint a picture of success (or expose “The Man Behind The Curtain”). In an ideal world, all digital marketing efforts are managed under one bucket, and 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: Google: Now Likely Using Online Merchant Reviews As Ranking Signal Earlier this week, the New York Times spotlighted how a merchant with bad reviews nonetheless was ranked well in Google. Today, […]
You’ve made the case for advanced optimization, implemented loads of slick technology and deployed across some or all of your paid search programs. Did you do the right thing? Did you make more money? If so, how much more? To answer the question “did I make more money” implies a baseline. Trouble is, you don’t […]
Move over PageRank and meet Webmaster Happiness Rank. That’s another metric that Google maintains, it turns out. Speaking at SES Chicago today, Senior Developer Programs Engineer, Google, Maile Ohye said Google has a metric to measure webmaster happiness. Every week, Google’s webmaster trends analysts team gets together to talk about how the webmaster’s are reacting […]
Not a day seems to pass when there isn't some new feature announcement by the search engines or some acquisition of an organization we've none of us heard of, but which powers lots of sites we didn't know needed powering. Its complex enough for anyone - but if you're in charge of a 25-language site running in 170 countries, its more than mind boggling - it can be soul destroying. Just how do we cope?
In the first two posts of this series (PPC Testing Part 1: The Ground Rules and PPC Testing Part 2: Optimization Cheat Sheet), the basic rules have been set and you’ve learned some of the optimization points you have to work with in order to gain more efficiencies in your accounts. However, for some, 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: Google AdSense Updates Ad Layouts The Google AdSense blog announced they have updated the layout of some AdSense units. The main changes were to make the ads “more space-efficient and visually […]
There can be no doubt that social marketing has been the hot topic for the last few years, but many marketers still have reservations about seriously investing in the space. Whilst many of the reasons for such reticence can be quickly brushed off (it’s just for kids, it’s a fad, etc…) some deserve more attention. […]
Paid search focused videos, slide presentations, and podcasts recorded at various Search Marketing Expo conferences. To see the full presentation, click on either the screenshot, or the session’s title. SMX Advanced – June 11-12, 2013 – Seattle, WA Slides & Speaker Audio: Big Data + Big Math = Exponential Search Performance Seems every industry is […]
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 Do Americans Access Government Data? Search Engines. The Pew Internet & American Life Project has issued a new report about how Americans access government information. They found that 82% of […]
Brian Clifton (PhD) is an independent author, consultant and trainer who specializes in performance optimization using Google Analytics. Brian has been involved in web design and SEO since as far back as 1997, when he built his first website and started defining best practise to advise clients. From 2005-8 he was Head of Web Analytics […]
Sometimes the start of a project is the hardest part. You don’t know what you don’t know. There will be questions to ask for which you may not know the answer. If you’re a beginning at search engine marketing, you may even be staring at a blank Excel sheet right now. The first question should […]
Aggressive marketers have been infiltrating competitors’ camps since long before Odysseus sought covert entrance to Troy by way of the fabled Trojan horse. Search and social media marketing tools elevated competitive intelligence to the level of industrial espionage, in the hands of the unscrupulous. That said, somewhere to the left of that ethical line in […]
I test a lot. Different ideas and techniques pour out of my brain; to be honest, some of them are utter crap. I learned the hard way not to take leaps without testing the takeoff and landing first. One step that seems to be overlooked when people are starting to test their own websites is […]
As part of your job managing in-house search marketing, you’ve no doubt created a training plan. At some point, you either have delivered training, or will need to. Whether it is natural search optimization, paid search management, social media, link building or any of the other disciplines that orbit around the world of search, training […]
Avinash Kaushik is Google's well-known and widely respected analytics guru. In this wide-ranging interview, he talks about his passion for metrics, why they're critical for success, and how search marketers can use analytics to take their campaigns to the next level.
Account organization is the first and most important step in the optimization process – it’s the foundation for success.
How will big brands will successfully latch onto social media and use it intelligently as marketing channel going forward? Read on for how we're doing it at Yahoo.
If you spend enough time sitting at your desk in summer, you can go slightly insane. That aside, daydreaming sometimes leads to back-door observations, studies show. Glancing out the window, it’s evident that it takes a lot of resources and coordination to run a neighborhood. Schools, crossing guards, street sweepers, garbage collection, public pool maintenance, […]
In the past, SEO success was measured by rankings of target keywords; then the focus moved to traffic; today we have moved into the bottom-line era: organic traffic should be measured by its impact on revenue. This post is based on a presentation delivered at eMetrics San Jose 2009. It is about ways to integrate […]
The state of the economy today, particularly in the marketing world, leaves little room for ineffective programming. Marketing budgets that don’t produce the desired result are primed for the slash of the eraser, never to be heard from again. As we move through the second month of 2009, take a moment to “see the forest […]
Much has been written about B2B search marketing programs designed for lead generation and customer acquisition purposes. For lead gen efforts, success metrics typically focus on volume of leads, cost per lead, and quality of lead. Many B2B marketers are starting to question this simplistic approach and are no longer willing to ignore the opportunity […]
I recently did an opening keynote down in Silicon Valley and before my audience got well into their first cup of coffee, I started ranting at them. Now, being Canadian, my rants are rather mild and non- threatening (although I apparently scared a lot of Aussies at SMX in Sydney) but consider it a kinder, […]
The Google AdWords blog announced the addition of a new report in the reporting center, named the geographic performance report. The report will detail approximate Country, Region, Metro, and City data and give you data on a account, campaign, and ad group level. The performance statistics available on these geographic reports include impressions, clicks, CTR, […]
Sweat glistened down his chiseled, tan face. Clad in his trademark gold jersey and black sunglasses, the icon finally put the finish line where it belongs… behind him. Yet despite the obvious missing hardware—his bike—and his dismal 488th place finish, the seven-time winner of the Tour de France considered the race a success. He had […]
In the first installment of this series, Total Search Marketing, Part 1, I wrote about the eConsultancy research showing that natural search (SEO) was the most frequently used online marketing tactic for lead generation. Yet, most marketers put the bulk of their search marketing budget into paid search. Many of these marketers felt their company […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
I’ve said a number of times that the holy grail of search is to disambiguate intent. A two or three word query, given the complexity of the English language, is just not enough to confidently provide results that will always be relevant and useful. But up to now, it’s been all we’ve had. Today, however, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Search Marketer Measurement & Performance Study from iProspect and JupiterResearch was released, providing an update to the search marketing landscape. Here are some key points learned from the study. 43% of SEMs cannot measure the ROI from SEO campaigns SEO nets a higher ROI than paid search Traffic is the most common job performance indicator […]