The Latest
Top 3 roadblocks to using marketing analytics
No objective / plan In the 4th quarter of every year companies start planning for the upcoming year. The problem is that the planning starts with budgets. They look at what was spent over the past year, consider if the activities will remains consistent or change and adjust the budget accordingly, or just arbitrarily cut budgets. This approach does not establish performance metrics, just spending levels. Too often subordinates are…
Social Proof – a few simple things for big results
We see social proof all around us. From celebrity endorsements on the high end to ratings and reviews on the more common programs. Social proof can come in many forms, but it comes down to people believing in you because others believe it you. Take advantage of this in digital marketing and you’ll see increased customer acquisition and retention. Shoppers are looking to reduce the risk inherent with their buying…
Google’s Penguin Goes Real Time
Last month Google hit us with two pretty major changes to the search algorithm. The first was a straightforward update in early September. When this hit, we saw most programs take a slight dip and then recover after about a week. But, then Google announced that they will incorporate Penguin into the core algorithm as well, applying it to every query. This caused a lot of consternation as things fluctuated…
Hyper targeting ads on facebook
This past week I conducted a workshop at SCORE Chicago, which is a business mentoring organization for small – to mid sized companies associated with the SBA. The content was marketing on Facebook. We covered the basics of setting up a social media presence, engaging on Facebook (and others) as well as Facebook Advertising. While most were aware of advertising on Facebook, they generally did not know about the level of…
UTM Tracking for Your Google Analytics
Okay, starting with a couple of assumptions. 1. You care about knowing where your website traffic is coming from and finding better places from which to get it. 2. You have, or are willing to get, Google Analytics (GA) setup on your site. If you are putting links in social media or paid advertising, you should be tagging everyone of them to understand where your best traffic is coming from….
Microsoft’s LinkedIn View Through Conversion Tracking
View through conversions have been around for quite some time. The simple premise is that a media channel tracks when a person sees your ad or content and then, some time later, when they go to your site and convert, the tracking tag on your site sends data back to the media channel indicating that a conversion took place. The channel then shows that the user saw the content and…
Ad Blockers Put On Notice by Facebook
Facebook announced that it will implement ad serving in such a way that ad blockers can’t prevent the advertisements from showing. [ad blocking]…reduces the funding needed to support the journalism and other free services that we enjoy on the web. Facebook is one of those free services, and ads support our mission of giving people the power to share and making the world more open and connected. Rather than paying…
Why can’t I find new customers? Wrong question.
Not too long ago the paradigm shifted. With few media choices for consumers and large budgets for advertisers, brands would focus on targeting the customer. Consumers watched one of the major television stations, you just needed to look at Nielsen to know which shows. It seemed like every household received the major newspaper in town (or one of the few). The idea of targeting a prospective customer kind of made…
Changes With Google and Bing Search
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 there is a lot of behind the scenes organizational stuff, for advertisers it means that…
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 to the website is not even part of the implementation. Our focus is on the…
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 visiting less and spending less time when the do This last one is a key…
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 the associated scripts, styles and other bits of code take a lot to process. We…
SEO
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A Guide to Auto Shop SEO
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Does Duplicate Content Hurt SEO?
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Do No-Follow Links Help SEO?
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Technical SEO An Overview
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The Impact of AI on SEO (So Far)
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Citation Building for Local S…
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A Beginners Guide to Local SEO
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B2B SEO: Content-Led Strategy
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SEO Timelines: How Long Does SEO Take…
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PPC
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Automotive Repair Digital Marketing P…
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Your Back to Basics Guide: Keywords, Search Terms, and Search Themes In today’s…
Google Ads Campaign Types Breakdown
Your Back to Basics Guide: Campaign Types Whether you’re new to Google Ads or ju…
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Google Ads Tracking Offline Conversions
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Evolution of a PPC Agency
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5 Common Mistakes in Google Ads
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Geo Targeting Vs Geo Fencing
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Optimizing SEO vs. PPC Landing Pages
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Display Campaigns & Brand Awareness
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Google Ads Match Types Lack Meaning
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All Blogs
Top 3 roadblocks to using marketing analytics
No objective / plan In the 4th quarter of every year companies start planning for the upcoming year. The problem …
Social Proof – a few simple things for big results
We see social proof all around us. From celebrity endorsements on the high end to ratings and reviews on the …
Google’s Penguin Goes Real Time
Last month Google hit us with two pretty major changes to the search algorithm. The first was a straightforward update …
Hyper targeting ads on facebook
This past week I conducted a workshop at SCORE Chicago, which is a business mentoring organization for small – to mid …
UTM Tracking for Your Google Analytics
Okay, starting with a couple of assumptions. 1. You care about knowing where your website traffic is coming from and …
Microsoft’s LinkedIn View Through Conversion Tracking
View through conversions have been around for quite some time. The simple premise is that a media channel tracks when …
Ad Blockers Put On Notice by Facebook
Facebook announced that it will implement ad serving in such a way that ad blockers can’t prevent the advertisements from …
Why can’t I find new customers? Wrong question.
Not too long ago the paradigm shifted. With few media choices for consumers and large budgets for advertisers, brands would …
Changes With Google and Bing Search
There have been a lot of changes in search this year and some big changes in store. You have likely …
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 …
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 …
AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages
The Problem AMP and FIA Fix Behind the scenes a browser sorts through a whole bunch of code that tells …