There have been a lot of changes in search this year and some big changes in store. You have likely seen many of these, but since they tend to come out in a fairly ad hoc fashion, I am bringing together some of the bigger changes. Bing and Yahoo! are breaking up their deal. While…
Author: steve
Digital marketer with deep experience in paid and organic search engine marketing driven by website analytics.
Content marketing has made SEO link building harder
Yes good content should generate links back to your website and improve SEO perfomance. The challenge is in helping people differentiate between content marketing strategy and SEO link building tactics, and their respective control. Content marketing starts with a broader marketing objective, using distributed content to help achieve goals, and in some cases linking back…
Adobe’s Best of the Best – less engagement is good
As designers and marketers, the best thing we can do for our website users is help them get off our sites a fast as possible. Take a look at Adobe’s study and a few things stand out: Traffic from smartphones is growing year over year (no surprise) For some industries desktops remain dominant Users are…
AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages
The Problem AMP and FIA Fix Behind the scenes a browser sorts through a whole bunch of code that tells it how to present the content. This code is an agreed upon standard. Unfortunately, it is not really designed for easy mobile access to information such as news stories or blog articles. Standard html and…
Google Compare Shutting Down
Google will close down its lead gen platform, Google Compare, by the end of March. Compare was, as the name infers, a way for shoppers to compare pricing and get quotes for services focused primarily in finance and insurance. After a 12 month run, Google sent an email to the partners letting them know that the…
Big changes coming to Google paid search results
Fewer Ads to Show on Google Search Results Page – No Right Sidebar Google will remove the right sidebar ads from desktop search results, globally. There is an exception for product listing ads only. In some cases Google may add a fourth ad to the top results if it is a localized (inferred or explicit)…
Video Advertising – bike style
Video advertising is all around us in different forms. From the computer and phone to large outdoor billboards. But, this video advertising platform form Kino-mo is totally cool. The technology has the video reflecting off the spokes of the wheels while the bike is in motion. Relying on the visual trickery of the spokes seeming…
What to look for in a search marketing agency
Organizational and cultural fit. There are a lot of search marketing agencies out there. And, putting our competitive natures aside, there is a lot of good talent spread throughout. Often it is not the competencies of the search marketers themselves, but the culture of the agency that will determine if they are a good fit…
FTC Issues Guidelines on Native Advertising
Ever read an article on the internet that has a link embedded in it that appears to be linking to information similar to the article, only to click on it and be pitched with something that is, at best, only remotely related to the original content? You’re not alone. This is Native Advertising at its…
SEO: Don’t underestimate the basic practices
Over the years SEO tactics have evolved to try to keep up with the changes in how Google ‘enforces’ what it considers to be quality websites and content. As we engage with new clients we see that many of the problems are related to ignoring the basics in favor of chasing the latest tactics. It…