пятница, 30 сентября 2016 г.

Cultivating Customers A Farmer's Guide to Online Marketing PDF Mobi Epub Download | Feedbooks

[read online] Simon Huntley Cultivating Customers A Farmer’s Guide to Online Marketing Simon Huntley Cultivating Customers A Farmer’s Guide to …

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Kentico Software Positioned in Challengers Quadrant of Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content ...

Kentico is an all-in-one CMS, E-commerce, and Online Marketing platform that drives business results for companies of all sizes, both on-premise or in …

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National Community Tourism Portal Launched

The National Community Tourism Portal is a web-based platform to … with an online presence and online marketing strategies to create growth.

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Facebook is King in Retailers' Social Marketing Strategies

“State of Retailing Online 2016: Marketing and Merchandising,” a recent report from the Washington, D.C.-basred National Retail Federation (NRF) …

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Retailers' Marketing Plans: Facebook, Facebook, Facebook

Retailers are boosting their social media ad budgets, and Facebook has become the social vehicle of choice, according to a new survey on digital …

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Conversh Digital Marketing Ribbon Cutting

With your help, we will provide a friendly, safe, easy to use place on the Web for everyone in the area to share not only opinions but also information of …

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Deutsche Post widens its e-commerce reach in Europe with UK Mail

… and parcel delivery service UK Mail Group Plc in an effort to boost its presence in a market dominated by former state behemoth Royal Mail Plc.

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3 Mobile Marketing Tips to Get Shoppers Offline and Into the Showroom

One of the biggest challenges facing auto dealers is how to bridge the gap between potential customers who browse online and those who walk into a …

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What Does an Internet Marketing Associate Do?

Meaghan took over Search Influence’s Twitter to explain those tweets and what it is exactly that a Content Internet Marketing Associate (IMA) does.

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ONLINE VIDEO ROUND UP: Pinta Launches Bodega Media, Yahoo, Twitter and YouTube ...

Technavio has predicted that global digital video content market to grow at a CAGR of close to 26% during the forecast period. The report also claimed …

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Virtual textbook tested at Cambrian College

Marketing student Stephanie Rhoden is part of a group of 230 students who are using interactive online learning resources at Cambrian College.

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For One Online Retailer, Loyalty Program is More Than Just Transactional

Loyalty programs have become a strong engagement tool for online … your e-commerce store,” Cody Sparks, online marketing director for HobbyTron, …

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Top 7 Vendors in the Global Event Management as a Service Market from 2016 to 2020: Technavio

“The competition in the market is intense as vendors are trying to sustain … Its solutions include online event registration, event marketing, budgeting …

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No Man's Sky's advertising is officially under investigation in the UK

Both Hello Games and Valve have reportedly been asked to respond to a number of questions surrounding that online marketing. The Advertising …

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Why 76% of retailers are spending more this year on social media marketing

Social media marketing is paying off. … to Forrester Research Inc.’s report “The State of Retailing Online 2016: Marketing and Merchandising.

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Five Digital Marketing Facts Marketers Should Know

The numbers that eMarketer shared with digital net revenues and spending are impressive. We want to share our top 5 digital marketing facts that …

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FOTV's Hologram USA Receives Innovator of the Year Honors at IMPACT Awards

The Internet Marketing Association’s annual awards celebration was held Sept. 20, 2016 at the Aria Convention Center at CityCenter in Las Vegas.

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Research: Conversion from paid Facebook campaigns rises for 68% of retailers

The annual State of Retailing Online 2016: Marketing and Merchandising Report from the National Retail Federation and Forrester found that 92% of …

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Stock's Trend Analysis Report: Cemex SAB de CV (ADR) (NYSE:CX), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd ...

The company’s Market capitalization is $275.06 Billion with the total … and Exchange (TANX), a real-time bidding online marketing exchange in China; …

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Taiwan online ad market revenue jumps 32% in H1

Online advertising service providers in Taiwan reached total revenues of TWD 11.195 billion (approximately USD 350 million) in the first half of this …

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Learn How to Optimize for Voice Search NOW: More than Half of Queries will be Voice Search Queries by 2020

Learn How to Optimize for Voice Search NOW: More than Half of Queries will be Voice Search Queries by 2020 was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

By 2020, there will be 200 billion voice search queries per month and more than half of searches will come from voice search, according to comScore research. Digital marketers need to invest in strategies that target voice searchers. Read on to get tips on optimizing for voice search with perspectives from a search agency (with Bing’s Purna Virji), a publisher (The SEM Post’s Jennifer Slegg) and an SEO (Elite SEM’s Tony Edward).

From left: Tony Edwards, Purna Virji and Jennifer Slegg

Bing’s Purna Virji on the Evolution of Voice Search

Purna Virji, the senior training manager at Microsoft, talked about how voice search is shaping our world. Everything from television remotes to hotel rooms can be powered by voice. By 2017, all Ford vehicles will come with Apple CarPlay.

Reasons People Use Voice Search

  • It’s faster than typing. You can speak 110–150 words per minute, as opposed to the average person’s typing rate of 38–40 words per minute.

    You can speak 110–150 words per min, as opposed to avg person’s typing 38–40 wpm. -@purnavirji…
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  • People want quick answers.
  • People are often second screening or otherwise occupied
Slide of mobile use statistics

(click to enlarge)

Jennifer Slegg on Content for the Voice Search Generation

Like Virji, the founder and editor of The SEM Post, Jennifer Slegg, believes the time to optimize for voice search is now.

Consider the fact that more than half of U.S. teens and 41% of adults use voice search on a daily basis, or that there are 30 times more action queries on voice search.

How Feature Snippets Work with Voice Search

Voice search has a higher percentage of featured snippets. Slegg says 43.3% for voice queries have featured snippets, compared to 40.6% for text queries.

Moreover, Google reads the featured snippets aloud to users beginning with “According to (site)” or “We found this information on (site).” Google reinforces your brand in voice search. (Learn how to earn featured snippets in 2016.)

Use Moz and SEMRush to track your own and your competitors’ featured snippets.

RankBrain and Voice Search

  • Stronger influence on 15% of search queries Google has never seen before, and they tend to be voice searches.
  • You’re able to better rank conversational search queries with keywords.
  • It’s the third most important ranking signal, behind content and links.

How do you optimize for RankBrain? By optimizing for conversational search.

How to Optimize for Voice Search

Voice search queries are longer than text search queries. The average query length for voice is 4.2 words, and the average query length for text is 3.2 words.

Long-tail queries are less competitive and have higher intent. While they’re searched for less, they’re more likely to convert.

Use your content to answer questions. There is a 61% growth in queries starting with who, what, where and how. Furthermore, almost 10% of voice search queries start with who, what, when, where, why, how – as opposed to only 3.7% of text queries. “How” begins 3.6% of all voice search queries and “What” begins 3.5% of all voice search queries.

Tony Edward on How Humans Speak

Tony Edward, the senior SEO manager at Elite SEM, reminded digital marketers that optimizing for voice search begins with standard SEO best practices.

  • Build in-depth content that answers commonly asked questions around your brand, services, products, etc., including content that answers who, what, when, where, why and how.
  • Leverage Structured Data Markup depending on the content type.
  • Work to get your brand in the Knowledge Graph.
  • Ensure content is structured well using headers and bulleted or numbered lists.

Edward shared his tips on coming up with content strategy:

  • Mine call center, live chat and email data to find commonly asked questions surrounding your product, service or brand.
  • Use third-party tools to get auto search suggestion topics, such as AnswerThePublic.com or UberSuggest.io.

By implementing the above best practices and creating useful content, Edward has been able to earn branded Knowledge Graphs and Featured Snippets. As noted earlier, getting a branded Knowledge Graph entry or Featured Snippet makes your result more voice search ready.

 


Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO services, SEM PPC, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.



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Leading SEOs Discuss AMP, PWAs, URL Parameters, Featured Snippets, KPIs and More

Leading SEOs Discuss AMP, PWAs, URL Parameters, Featured Snippets, KPIs and More was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

This is a report from SMX East 2016. Search Marketing Expo (SMX) features speakers from industry-leading digital marketers and search engine representatives. Subscribe to the BCI Blog to get coverage of key sessions sent to your inbox.

Meet the SEOs is a key SMX session where digital marketers are able to ask four leading digital marketers any question they have. The panel, moderated by Search Engine Land Founder and Editor Danny Sullivan, features:

Duane Forrester, Hillary Glaser, Aleyda Solis, Michael King, Danny Sullivan

From left: Duane Forrester, Hillary Glaser, Aleyda Solis, Michael King, Danny Sullivan

What do you think about AMP, progressive loading web apps (PWAs), and web apps?

Forrester: I welcome our new PWA overlords. If Google wants it, Google will get it if it waits long enough for it. Google is doing this for a very good reason, because the average person will fail.

Glazer: If you are a newspaper or magazine or a site with a lot of content where the amount of content that is on your site is weighing down your site’s load time, AMP might be a quick fix. But if you rely on ads to produce revenue, AMP is not a good route for you. There are other ways you can go about decreasing your load time.

King:

What @iPullRank thinks about #AMP & progressive web apps, live from @smx. #smx #seo #apps #AMP http://pic.twitter.com/asx53FfSpx

— Kristi Kellogg (@KristiKellogg) September 29, 2016

Do people need to have apps?

Glaser: It’s situational. We have a healthcare client who it really makes sense for. Their clients can book appointments through the app, for example, without even having to log in. That makes the app valuable.

Forrester: I don’t know that AMP is going to have a long life span. If you don’t have an app already up and running and your app is two years away, I would reconsider building the app. PWA is blindingly fast and looks like a regular website … it just might crush AMP and apps.

Do we need URL parameters?

Forrester:

Do you need URL parameters? Here are @DuaneForrester‘s thoughts. @smx #smx #seo http://pic.twitter.com/p4GFAoPWcl

— Kristi Kellogg (@KristiKellogg) September 29, 2016

King: I don’t think inherently they’re bad, but they can create bad situations.

When creating tables does the formatting style influence whether you get a Featured Snippet?

Forrester: It’s not about how you formatted it, but how much the search engine trusts you. To get a featured snippet, you must be highly trusted and serve up highly relevant content.

Will Google make featured snippets sponsored eventually?

Solis: I don’t think that’s realistic.

Glaser: I don’t think that’s going to happen.

(Read our coverage of the SMX East session How to Earn Featured Snippets.)

301s vs. 302s?

Unanimous: 301s.

(Read our guide on How to Implement a 301 Redirect.)

Should we be delivering ranking reports or not?

Glaser: Yes, if you can tie back to something.

Solis: You want to monitor it and see how you are vs. your competition, because it does have an effect on the ultimate goals: traffic, conversion, ROI, etc.

What are the top three KPIs you need to report to management?

Forrester: That needs to be decided before you take on the work. Whatever that business wants or needs, those are your KPIs. Could be traffic, sign-ups, revenue, time on site — find out from them. Ranking is not a KPI, but a tool.

Solis: For a migration, however, I would say ranking is a KPI. It depends on the project.

Should I interlink related but not duplicated sites that my company owns?

Sullivan interjects and answers the question: No — you should only do it if there’s some value. Don’t do it for a boost.

Forrester: Maybe combine the content and make a single, stronger site. If you interlink them, you risk appearing like a link network and getting in hot water. Pull your content together, put it on a single strong domain, build a business and move forward.

If you had a brand new site and no budget, what would you do?

Glaser: Invest in really good content. Update your meta data seasonally and learn how to understand user intent and behavior. Learn why people come from both Google and Bing and dig into Search Console. Update your content with that knowledge.

Forrester: If you don’t have a lot of money, you better have a lot of personality. You need to have a reason for people to engage with you, and that can be writing style, tone and voice. These will get you a social presence. There’s no end to it and virtually no cost.

King: This is what guest posting is actually for. When you write something on a highly trafficked site, it’s one of the quickest ways to get eyes and links on your own site. It’s a good idea when you’re starting something from scratch. Realistically, if you’re going after a competitive term, search is not what you want to target at first with no budget.

What are some of your favorite tools?

Forrester: Bing Webmaster Tools.

King: Moz’s Keyword Explorer, KeywordTool.io and Keyword Studio.

Solis: Keyword Finder and SEMRush.

Glaser: SEMRush, BrightEdge, Raven Tools, Google Keyword Planner. 


Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO services, SEM PPC management, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.



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17 Ways Link Building Can Go Awry

17 Ways Link Building Can Go Awry was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

This is a report from SMX East 2016. Search Marketing Expo (SMX) features speakers from industry-leading digital marketers and search engine representatives. Subscribe to the BCI Blog to get coverage of key sessions sent to your inbox.

Shah Menz at SMX East

Link building specialist Sha Menz

Link removal specialist Sha Menz has a word of warning for SEOs: Manipulating the link game is like everything else — it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

A superhero SEO can come along and save your site, but there are much more powerful things your superhero SEO could be doing rather than link cleanup.

Menz shared 17 areas where link building can go awry and 3 ways link building can be done best!

17 Ways Link Building Can Go Wrong

1. Anchor Text

link anchor text slide

2. Paid Links
There’s nothing wrong with a sponsored link, by the way — but call it out. Note that it’s sponsored, like Search Engine Land Editor Barry Schwartz does in the below example.

link-nofollow-example

3. Reciprocal Link Exchange

These seem to be having a resurgence, said Menz. If you’re shaking hands and agreeing to trade links with someone, it’s not necessarily a bad thing — if there’s some actual reason that both of your sites can link to the other in a natural and useful way. BUT if this is the case, don’t hesitate to use a nofollow tag. Getting traffic and being useful are the key things you’re doing here.

4. JavaScript and CSS Tricks

Don’t hide things here. Search engines will see it.

5. Irrelevant and Spun Content

6. Footer Links

People can get very sneaky. In the below example, the word “C-o-p-y-r-i-g-h-t” actually has a link on every letter.

linking from every letter

7. Comment Spam

8. Wiki-loading

9. Bad Directories

10. Guest Posting

11. Kiss-of-Death Domains

kiss-of-death domains list

Learn about suspect domains at DomainTools.com.

12. Link Networks

13. Redirect Madness

Watch out for third-party redirect passes through high-quality domains. This might appear in the form of intentionally misspelled domain names in the code. Use the SpamFlag Chrome extension in conjunction with Majestic SEO.

14. Coupon Capers

15. Link Builders You Forgot to Fire

This may sound ridiculous, but it can happen. Ensure previous link builders have been informed and are not building additional links.

16. Rogue Themes, Toolbars and Plugins

17. Black Hats Masquerading as White Hats

3 Ways Link Building Works

It’s all about doing the work. None of the tricks are worth it. Investing your time in actual work is much more profitable. Consider, then, doing the following:

1. Help Others to Help Yourself

Sometimes you’re just out there in a forum being really helpful, or you have written a blog post that’s really valuable. Those kinds of things can pay you back dividends with links.

2. Share Your Expertise

Loan a developer, teach a local class, etc.

3. Do the Unexpected

The Elephant in the Room: Penguin in the Wild

Menz would be remiss if she didn’t bring up the elephant in the room: Penguin. Is the newly hatched real-time Penguin the light at the end of the tunnel for your site, or are you clinging to a runaway train?

“Recognition of your cleanup work will be quicker by the search engines, but results will be harder to spot,” said Menz, adding that the only real results she’s seen (so far) have been people who are ill-affected.

One thing she wants to note is that disavows are still important, which we also confirmed with Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes earlier this week:

@BruceClayInc we haven’t changed our recommendations for the disavow tool with this launch

— Gary Illyes (@methode) September 26, 2016


Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO penalty repair, SEO services, SEM PPC management, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.



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среда, 28 сентября 2016 г.

Online Marketing Misconceptions That Hold Back Provider Organizations

The health and human service industry is quickly catching up to other sectors when it comes to online marketing. Still, while provider organizations …

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Why Execs Can't Ignore Online Marketing Anymore – Even In Health & Human Services

The website, however, is part of a broader issue that should get much more executive attention: an organization’s online presence and marketing …

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Online Marketing Intern

Online Marketing Intern | Fuldtid, Handel & Service, Marketing og kommunikation med Jack & Jones. Søg i dag.

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Online Marketing Assistant

Right now we have a position open for an entry-level Online Marketing Assistant! This entry-level position is a fantastic opportunity for a creative, …

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How Will Brexit Impact Online Marketing

It is going to impact different industries, including online marketing. A number of experts argue that since digital marketing is without boundaries, Brexit …

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Web.com holds grand opening of New Glasgow office

Web.com holds grand opening of New Glasgow office … search engine optimization, online marketing campaigns, local sales leads, social media, …

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The 4.3 Billion User Marketplace You Can't Afford to Ignore

Often misused, forgotten or flat out ignored, this online marketing method remains one of the most effective ways to sell your products and services.

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Personalisation grows in Asia

This found that increasing brand awareness was the top online marketing goal in the next 12 months, followed by delivering personalised ads …

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How Positive Customer Reviews Can Help Your Business

A very large percentage of consumers turn to online reviews when it comes time to … If you use Schema markup on your website it’s possible to have your … Founder & CEO of Market Domination Media®, an online marketing agency …

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4 Simple Ways To Grow Your Email Subscriber List

Online marketing whiz William Holeksa from Internetum agrees, stating, “As one of the most traditional marketing mediums, email still offers the best …

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E-commerce boom drives affiliate marketing firms

The market for affiliate marketing is booming. Consumers are warming up to the idea of discount coupons and cashback when they shop online.

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ABQ startups help kick off ExperienceIT

CleanSpot, which is marketing its “ActiveClean” sanitizer through online promotion and sales, unveiled clips from newly-filmed, comical commercials …

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Ralph Lauren & Michael Kors Dominate Upscale Brands Online

Ralph Lauren Corp. and Michael Kors lead the pack when it comes to online market share, says the latest online luxury brands trend report from PMX …

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5 Ways to Boost Your Website's SEO Game

Search engine optimization (SEO) has become an important part of marketing strategies in a variety of industries across the globe. Business 2 …

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Online Marketing Fulfillment Tech.

We are an Online Business Development Company with offices in Thousand Oaks, CA. We are looking for full and part time Marketing Fulfillment …

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10 unique online marketing methods that most business owners don't know about

Most business owners and marketers know that internal links are important for SEO. However, some forget that your menu items are actually just …

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Digital Marketing Manager

We are looking for a Digital Marketing Manager to join a fantastic national employment charity based in London. This person will create a new strategy …

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Wal-Mart's Strategy Becoming Increasingly Clear

If successful this investment will provide Wal-Mart a major beachhead in a fast growing online retail market and also blunt Amazon’s advantage in the …

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Digital River Recognized as a Finalist in the UK's Drum Content Awards

The ecommerce provider earned its latest spot on a U.K. award list for an integrated online and social media marketing campaign, which compared …

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Wash Wisdom: 7 money management tips to keep your startup from failing

Knowing your audience and who to target is always essential. Keep your audience in mind when creating online marketing material and pitching it.

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Featured Snippets in Search ‘Build Near-Instant Credibility’: Glenn Gabe on How to Earn Them in 2016

Featured Snippets in Search ‘Build Near-Instant Credibility’: Glenn Gabe on How to Earn Them in 2016 was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

This is a report from SMX East 2016. Search Marketing Expo (SMX) features speakers from industry-leading digital marketers and search engine representatives. Subscribe to the BCI Blog to get coverage of key sessions sent to your inbox.

glenn-gabe-social

Want to earn Featured Snippets in Google Search? Glenn Gabe, the president of G-Squared Interactive, shares how to increase your chances of earning a Featured Snippet at SMX East.

Featured Snippets are incredibly powerful and can drive more traffic than a No. 1 result. According to Gabe, Featured Snippets build nearly instant credibility.

Gabe shares a client case study. A Featured Snippet yielded 41,444 clicks in 90 days, accounting for 73% of the client’s traffic from Google. The CTR? 13.2%.

snippets-drive-traffic-smx-glenn-gabe

A word of warning, though: the Google algorithm can be fickle when it comes to Featured Snippets. A different client Gabe had earned a Featured Snippet, but then lost it … along with 39,000 clicks within a two week period. The client then won the Featured Snippet, and then lost it again, proving Gabe’s point about Google’s fickleness.

Ways Featured Snippets Appear

  • Text
  • Bullets
  • Images
  • Bullets with images
  • Tables
  • Knowledge Graph
  • Text with a link to another Featured Snippet

Common Questions about Featured Snippets

Do you need to rank No. 1 to receive a Featured Snippet?

No! But always Page No. 1.

Are they displayed just for “question” queries?

No. They appear for head terms and topics, as well.

Is Structured Data a requirement?

No. Though John Mueller’s team once considered making this a requirement, they decided against it. They didn’t want to bog down webmasters with even more code.

john mueller screenshot

Can Featured Snippets be personalized?

Yes, depending on whether or not you’re logged in, your location, and your search history.

What are some tools to find and/or research Featured Snippets?

Google Search Console, SEMRush and Moz.

Is there something even better than Featured Snippets?

Yes: the huge SERP real estate winner that is a Featured Video.

Can you refine Featured Snippets?

Yes. And it works fast. Gabe did this and saw his result change in seven minutes. He reminds digital marketers to be careful, though – you could lose your Featured Snippet in the process.

How to Earn a Featured Snippet

  • Cover a topic as thoroughly and clearly as you can.
  • Answer the question concisely and provide both the question and answer on the page.
  • Provide a concise section that answers the core query.
  • Use bullets or numbered lists for processes.
  • Provide a strong image near the answer for possible inclusion in the Featured Snippet.
  • Use HTML tables where appropriate.

Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO services, SEM PPC, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.


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SEO Godfather Bruce Clay & Search Insider Duane Forrester Field Digital Marketers’ Questions at #SMX

SEO Godfather Bruce Clay & Search Insider Duane Forrester Field Digital Marketers’ Questions at #SMX was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

This is a report from SMX East 2016. Search Marketing Expo (SMX) features speakers from industry-leading digital marketers and search engine representatives. Subscribe to the BCI Blog to get coverage of key sessions sent to your inbox.

bruce clay duane forrester answer seo questions

Representing Bruce Clay, Inc., Bruce Clay and Duane Forrester hosted an AMA (ask me anything) session at SMX East 2016. The audience is packed and ready to dive into hot SEO topics including:

  • Starting an SEO business
  • Reviews as ranking factors
  • Inorganic link clean-up
  • Redirects in light of link penalties
  • Communicating SEO priorities to developers
  • Moving to HTTPS

Where do we start with SEO and how do we get the most out of our site as a garage-based business? What’s a good blueprint for the next six months?

Bruce: If you haven’t taken a formal course, I’d recommend it. Read books, pay attention, go to conferences – invest your time and money in understanding SEO. Don’t violate any rules, write content that is worthy of being linked to and then let people know you created it.

Are reviews ranking factors?

Duane: Reviews are about a trust-level factor. Mentions indicate sentiment at a consumer level. Google and Bing will not look past that.

Reviews are good and extraordinarily powerful. Millennials and Generation Z have a huge impact on consumer spending and on businesses, so it’s very important to understand what matters to them.

You want to hear from them and know what they think is good and bad. Millennials and Generation Z trust anonymous grouped results more than friends and family.

Generation Z is still figuring out what matters to them. They have no brand loyalty.

Do not auto-generate reviews. Absolutely not. If you were our client and you did that, we would fire you. That will destroy your domain and your SEO career.

Bruce: It’s all about trust. The Google Quality Rating Guidelines talks about expertness, authority and trust. These are the three most important things they look at when determining how a site should rank. (Learn more about the Google Quality Rating Guidelines.) There’s actually a fourth factor, too: maintenance.

bruce clay duane forrester answer SEO questions

How do you deal with spammy links. Getting spammy links every month. What is the best practice to clean up?

Bruce: We have a free guide to link pruning that gives you the complete how-to procedure.

TL;DR: Identify the bad links with Majestic, sort by lowest trust, add them to a disavow file. (Do a free check of your backlinks against backlinks others have disavowed at DisavowFiles.com.)

There are four terms worth understanding: organic, inorganic, transactional and navigational.

Organic links should be experts in my field and the link should support my business. Suppose I’m an SEO company and you link to me but you have a site about cowboy boots, Google won’t count that. Organic is subject-related.

Inorganic is when they’re not related and those will not be counted by Google. Google gives them no weight.

Then there’s transactional and navigational. Transactional is when you’re linked to with a keyword. If 80 percent of your inbound links are transactional, Google will see you as a spammer. Navigational is anchor text like “click here.”

Duane: We like to think of this in terms of bad actors. If a dentist links to me, that is irrelevant to me – I’m not associated with the world of dentistry. It’s not just about spam – it’s about cleaning up irrelevant links.

We have multiple sites, two of which sell similar offerings. Do you have any ideas on how to market one of them that’s newer without cannibalizing the established brand?

Duane: You need to take one of those horses into the backyard and let it go. The best way forward is to determine which one should live and migrate (301 redirect) the other. Focus on the stronger site and move forward.

Bruce: If your content is replicated, use canonical tags. I would at least consolidate links and PageRank. If you have multiple instances on multiple domains of the same source, Google will consider it spun content and it won’t benefit you on either site.

We changed domain names and 301 redirected our old site to our new site. Where do I check for bad links?

Bruce: Both sites. If a domain had a penalty and it was totally trashed, what you redirected it to will inherit the penalty. Analyze and purge both.

How important are things like heading tags, image names and alt tags in terms of ranking factors? If they are important, how do I convince my designers and developers to use those things correctly?

Duane: All these things are a fundamental piece of the work you need to do. If you don’t do it and your competitor does, your competitor will be shown ahead of you. If everything else is equal, they’re just a little more useful than you.

Bruce: According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, you must have an alt attribute. (Learn more about image optimization and alt attributes in Point 11 of our SEO Checklist). Also, a designer who uses a heading tag to format something is lazy.

Can you disavow an entire domain?

Bruce: Yes, but not a TLD.

Do you consider m-dot site for ecommerce?

Duane: No.

At what point do you make the jump to HTTPS?

Bruce: Now. Make it your initial 301. Spammers with 50,000 websites are not going to pay for those certificates. This is the cost of organic ranking.

I believe Google’s plan is to give a boost to HTTPS in the future. Officially, it’s just a tie breaker. But understand that Google is going to evolve to where HTTPS is going to be a requirement for top rankings.

Why do some exact match domains still rank well?

Bruce: I would assume they’re also legacy domains that have been around for quite a few years.


Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO services, SEM PPC, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.


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What’s New & Cool with Google AdWords & Analytics: Keynote by Jerry Dischler & Babak Pahlavan

What’s New & Cool with Google AdWords & Analytics: Keynote by Jerry Dischler & Babak Pahlavan was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

This is a report from SMX East 2016. Search Marketing Expo (SMX) features speakers from industry-leading digital marketers and search engine representatives. Subscribe to the BCI Blog to get coverage of key sessions sent to your inbox.

With a keynote delivered by Googlers (complete with product announcements!), it’s a full house at SMX East 2016.

Jerry Dischler, Vice President of Product Management for AdWords, and Babak Pahlavan, Senior Director of Measurement & Analytics, field questions from Search Engine Land editors Ginny Marvin, Greg Sterling and the SMX audience.

Read on to learn about:

  • Expanded text ads
  • Device bidding
  • Store visits
  • Audience Suite
  • Data Studio
  • Analytics Insights Cards
  • And announcements of new tools and features!
keynote-dischler-pahlavan

Ginny Marvin acts as a moderator for the SMX East keynote with Googlers Babak Pahlavan and Jerry Dischler.

Expanded Text Ads

Who’s succeeding with expanded text ads?

Editor’s note: Expanded text ads are the next generation of standard text ads on the Google Search Network and Google Display Network optimized for the mobile user experience. The format was rolled out to advertisers this past July.

Dischler: Advertisers who are using a dynamic, creative elements. Those who aren’t getting good results are only dipping their toe in the water. They’re only using one creative element, not going dynamic, aren’t optimizing as strongly.

What we’re hoping is that folks will jump in with both feet and start devoting the effort they devoted to standard text ads to expanded text ads.

Another observation: with branded terms, we’re seeing shorter headlines perform better.

Device Bidding for Ads

Earlier this year, device-level bidding was reintroduced. Talk a little bit about that decision to bring back separate device bidding and you expect to see advertisers take advantage of that?

Editor’s note: Here’s the quick and dirty background on device bidding. In 2013, Google took away its advertisers ability to bid differently based on the consumer’s device (mobile, tablet, desktop) in an initiative called Enhanced Campaigns. This year, device-level bidding was reintroduced to the Google advertising networks. Read Marvin’s write up on Search Engine Land for more on how advertisers are organizing campaigns by device.

Dischler: What we were seeing was a number of advertisers come to us with use cases for tablets that were really different. Let’s say you’re looking for NY hotels on your mobile phone vs. looking for NY hotels on your tablet. On the mobile phone, you’re going to have much higher conversion rate and would want to bid aggressively accordingly. Folks are thinking in a very mobile-first way, and this was happening more and more.

In the time before Enhanced Campaigns, we were seeing mobile avoidance. But here is the opposite. Advertisers have fully embraced mobile but the controls we had weren’t robust enough.

Take a look at your current bids – they represent a blended ROI. If you are able to get better performance on desktop and worse performance on tablet, adjust them in a way that is symmetric. In general what you should be doing is looking at your blended target across platforms in order to set your bid. This will achieve the right ROI mix. You have to figure out what’s right for you.

Store Visits Metric in AdWords

Google announced that they were expanding the store visits metric and that more than one billion store visits have been measured. Where is this going? What are the metrics today? Why is this important?

Dischler: In this multi-device, mobile-focused world, you should be measuring entire ROI whether they’re online or offline or calls, etc.

We want to help you work in an omni-channel way and measure the total value of your ad spend.

In retail, where 90+ percent of sales are offline, or in auto where 99.9% of sales are offline, it’s very important that you be able to measure online ROI.

For many advertisers, we’re seeing that the offline benefit is greater than the online benefit and we want advertisers to be able to measure that as easily as possible.

Earlier this week, Brad Bender announced that we’re adding the store visits metric to display, as well.

We have hundreds of millions of people who’ve opted into location history. We take that anonymized data and aggregate it, combine it with tradition signals including Google Maps and 3D modeling of building, Wi-Fi data and more to increase precision. We also have more than 5 million human reviewers working with us. Google has more than 99% accuracy with its store visits.

Google Analytics 360 Suite

Regarding the enterprise Audience Suite, how does audience targeting work and what does it mean for marketers?

Dischler: Advertisers who are using our RLSA (remarketing lists for search ads) say that this is the biggest change we’ve made that allows them to target their customers. Some largely sophisticated advertisers are still hesitant to experiment with RLSA, and I’d really encourage them to try it out.

Announcements

What’s going with Google Analytics Data Studio?

Pahlavan: Data Studio is our dashboard and reporting tool. There are two fundamental things about it that people love.

First, you can be up and running to do reporting by just connecting to the data sources.

And there’s collaborative sharing. The notion of collaboration is something we really focused on – you can very easily share a report across organizations and make the data available to everyone. The free version and enterprise version are available in 21 countries as of today; it was only available to U.S. advertisers before.

What new tools are coming?

Pahlavan: Our objective is to enable measurement for all businesses, no matter the size. Today we are announcing the free version of Optimize; sign up here: g.co/optimize.

Smart Goals were created for AdWords advertisers to be able to take advantage of crowd-sourced machine learning analytics that will help inform marketers of sessions that likely would have converted. How does this work? 

Pahlavan: We have a set of investments around how to leverage Google machine learning capabilities to make business a lot more efficient when leveraging the data they have. It’s being used by tens of thousands of advertisers. You can get a preview of what the performance could look like even if you’re not yet using it.

Recently, the Google Analytics mobile app launched with Insights cards. Can you talk about what’s going on with that? 

Pahlavan: Insights cards is in the bucket of our efforts around leveraging Google’s machine learn capability. Inside our Google Analytics app, it looks at a series of signals and tells you things like products that are performing much better. It looks at all permutations automatically. What channels are under or over performing? What are the areas you should pay attention to more? These are the kind of things it looks at. Insights cards will also be available on desktop in the future.

Will expanded texts ads be available for call-only ads?

Dischler: We’re in the process of testing out some things.

Do you want to talk about the thoughts behind the changes to Keyword Planner as far as data available to non-paying customers?

Dischler: We had this situation where what we wanted to do is have good actors be able to use our Keyword Planner and keep some bad actors out.

Our limits are really low so the vast majority of advertisers who have any spend should be able to use our tool. We can now accommodate most use cases while keeping the bad actors out.

Does Google Analytics have a plan to better address referrer spam?

Pahlavan: We have an active project internally. It’s been going on for sometimes to combat spam traffic. I can’t share the stats externally but this is something we take very seriously. We are constantly monitoring.

Some people just rely on Google Analytics for tracking and goals rather than implementing the AdWords pixel. What do you recommend?

Dischler: We recommend implementation for both.

Pahlavan: The have complementary use cases.

Are you going to add more and more ads to the search results page? Will organic disappear?

Q & A with @google‘s @jdischler & @babakph at @smx. “Are you going to add more and more ads? Will organic disappear? #SMX #SEO #PPC http://pic.twitter.com/xJnVCtWbFm

— Kristi Kellogg (@KristiKellogg) September 28, 2016


Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO, SEM PPC services, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.


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вторник, 27 сентября 2016 г.

Learn digital marketing strategies at the Oct. 6 East Texas Digital Talks forum

If your company or organization is looking for ways to stay on the cutting edge of digital business marketing, you need to make sure to attend East …

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Pall-Ex boss Hilary Devey wins top business award

There were 12 awards categories in total with Ann Stanley, founder and managing director of Leicester digital marketing agency Annica Digital, …

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Bradenton resident's book simplifies complex world of online marketing

Now he wants to help others clean up in the world of online marketing. Along with wife Stefanie, the Bradenton resident runs Overturf’s Floor & Fabric …

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P&G marketing chief: 'measurement is the challenge ahead'

One particular source of chagrin to the P&G marketing department is the challenge of deduplication, when it comes to targeting online ads, and …

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Admix Now Provides Customized Digital Marketing Solutions

Trussville, AL – (SBWIRE) – 09/27/2016 – Looking for high-end online marketing solutions may prove to be quite a challenging and time-taking task.

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More than 50 percent of shoppers turn first to Amazon in product search

… before making a purchase, Internet marketing firm BloomReach Inc. found. … Stores and search engines as the starting point for online shopping.

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Country managers - ecommerce country management, venture building, online marketing

trainee traineeship Architecture and/or Urban and Regional Planning, Business Studies and/or Management Science, Communication and …

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Baidu: Moving Beyond Ad Revenues

Online marketing revenues for the second quarter of 2016 were … which apparently benefited ad marketing rival Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) over Baidu.

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Online Marketing Lies Exposed

Every time a client calls scared from a sales pitch from some goober company I’ve never even heard of, I feel two things. First, I feel angry that a …

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Amazon Is Now Where Most Customers Go To Search Products

This comes via a Labor Day weekend poll released by internet marketing firm BloomReach Inc. Google, Yahoo and retailers have all lost ground to …

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Most Online Shoppers Turn to Amazon First

BloomReach Inc., an Internet marketing firm, surveyed 2,000 people and found that 55% of online shoppers check Amazon first when they're …

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What The Hell Is Wrong With Your Product Landing Pages?

However, most businesses are still obsessed with driving traffic rather than improving important aspects of an online marketing campaign, like landing …

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Five Bold Predictions About the Future of SEO and Social Media Marketing

The breakneck pace of SEO and social media development is exciting for online marketers. It offers countless new opportunities to get an edge over …

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How Content Marketing and SEO Work Together #SEJSummit

I love the story of your start in digital marketing. You worked at an indie bookstore who was losing money due to Amazon and your boss pretty much …

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Microsoft and Adobe team up to battle Amazon and Salesforce

(Bloomberg) The race to win in the cloud took another turn this week, bringing new options to online marketing professionals. Microsoft Corp. and …

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Marketing Architects Continues to Redefine Traditional Media with Team Expansion

MINNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–While companies invest millions in digital marketing channels, Minneapolis-based Marketing Architects is …

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Online Retailer MatahariMall Wins Award for Best Marketing Campaign

Jakarta. MatahariMall.com has won the Marketing Award 2016 for the best marketing campaign in Jakarta on Sept. 21 with an “excellent” predicate.

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ReachLocal Announces New Plugins for Instant Deployment of ReachEdge, its Marketing ...

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif., Sept. 27, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – ReachLocal, Inc., a leader in powering online marketing for local businesses, today …

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The URS: cheap, fast but not necessarily easy

The disputed domain name was <360.marketing> and it was being used to point to a website offering online marketing services. Both parties argued …

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How to Strengthen Your Retail Presence on Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook & Polyvore

How to Strengthen Your Retail Presence on Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook & Polyvore was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

This is a report from SMX East 2016. Search Marketing Expo (SMX) features speakers from industry-leading digital marketers and search engine representatives. Subscribe to the BCI Blog to get coverage of key sessions sent to your inbox.

When it comes to driving retail sales online, Google is the biggest game in town but it isn’t the only game in town.

Revenue is revenue and you’re leaving money on the table if you don’t explore possibilities beyond Google — we’re talking major opportunities on Amazon, Polyvore and eBay.

average order value for pinterest facebook twitter

SEM pros Chris Humber and Elizabeth Marsten leverage Amazon, Pinterest, Facebook and more to drive traffic and sales. Read on for their ecommerce expertise.

Strengthening Your Retail Presence on Amazon with Chris Humber

Chris Humber, the head of search at GroupM, starts with a fast tip: within seven to 10 days of optimizing your product database, you will see an increase in visibility.

Where do consumers go when they’re ready to purchase products? Many turn to their local stores. They walk in and get it … it’s immediate gratification. This is traditional shelf space.

But what about digital shelf space?

Amazon plays a key role in the shopping journey. Consumers use Amazon as a top destination for product searches.

  • 44% of consumers start their product search with Amazon.
  • 39% of consumers say Amazon has better product search capability while 8% say Google does.
  • 43% of U.S. shoppers say the main reason they choose Amazon is the ability to intuitively find or predict exactly what they want more quickly.
  • 73% of shoppers say they will make a purchase on Amazon at least once during the holiday season.
  • 87% of shoppers say they will check Amazon at least once during their shopping process this holiday season.

Here are the leading e-retailers beyond Google:

  • Amazon
  • Wal-Mart
  • Target
  • Best Buy
  • The Home Depot
  • Kohl’s
  • Macy’s
  • Walgreens
  • Sears

What about social shopping? Sites like Pinterest, Polyvore, ModCloth, Wanelo, OpenSky and Fancy are frequented more and more.

Pinterest is where the world’s ideas are catalogued and stored, and it’s also one of the most advanced visual-based search engines that exists today.

On Pinterest, 55% of users shop for products, not to talk with friends or brands. Compare this to 12% on Facebook and 12% on Instagram, according to Forrester research.

Optimizing Your E-Retail Presence

Traditional optimization tactics can help your e-retail efforts in numerous ways:

  • Rankings
  • Relevancy
  • Traffic and conversions
  • Version control and syndication
  • Organic, traditional search results

To identify keywords, leverage multiple tools. Amazon Retail Analytics (ARA) Premium provides your top 100 search terms each month.

Understand the search landscape beyond Google. Look at organic search results with tools like STAT, BrightEdge, SEMRush, SpyFu, AdGooRoo, Mozenda and Deep Crawl. Determine what has the top share of voice on search (paid and organic) and Amazon (paid and organic) to pinpoint market trends.

Don’t forget to optimize your product pages!

4 Best Practices for Increasing Conversion Rate

  1. 21 reviews is the sweet spot. At this point, there is a 3% to 5% increase in conversion rate (depending on the presence of negative reviews); after that the increase drops off.
  2. Use 3 or more images.
  3. Availability – always have your product in stock.
  4. Have at least one piece of supplemental content.

Top 5 Factors that Correlate with a Better Ranking

  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank
  • Items Sold (fulfilled by Amazon)
  • Keywords in product title
  • Prime-eligible products
  • Discounts

 

Get Found More, Sell More on Pinterest, Facebook & More with Elizabeth Marsten

Elizabeth Marsten, the director of paid search at CommerceHub, is going to dive into some other platforms. Some of them, like Polyvore, you may have never heard of.

Pinterest

  • 100 million active users
  • 80% of Pinterest users access the platform via mobile
  • Promoted Pins drive 5X more incremental in-store sales per impression
  • Retargeted Ads target at act-alike audiences increased CTRs by up to 63% and reach by 30X in early testing
  • Pinterest referrals have an average order value of $50
  • Rich Pins are free but you need metadata on that page of your site.
  • Product Feed needed for Promoted and Buyable pins. You maintain ability to edit or designate which products are promoted. Buyable requires a partner to handle the transaction.
  • Retargeting (you need a Marketing Developer Partner)
  • Video (you need a Pinterest Account Team and this is not yet available to everyone)

Facebook Dynamic Product Ads

CommerceHub has seen an average return on ad spend (ROAS) among clients at 900-1200%. These clients have product catalogs ranging from 350 to 1,000.

Keep in mind that this is still a remarketing method. You first need engagement channels to create audiences. It cannibalizes other channels with a last-click attribution. Use your revenue numbers, not just Facebook’s.

Yahoo

Some useful things to leverage on Yahoo:

  • Custom Audiences for Search Retailer for an unnamed big box store saw:
    • 225% increase in CTR
    • 230% increase in CR
    • 51% reduction in CPA
  • Search Retargeting on Native for an unnamed big box store saw:
    • 23% conversions from native
    • 14% lower CPA on native than search (text) ads

Polyvore

This Yahoo-owned social commerce site’s users are 84% female and 50% of those females are millennials under the age of 34. On the site, you make “sets,” which are outfits. More than 3 million sets are created each month.

Marsten said ladies shopping on these sites have money to burn. The average order on Polyvore is $270. Comparatively, the average order value on Instagram is $228, Twitter is $155 and Facebook is $130.

Fast facts about Polyvore:

  • 41% increase in clicks YoY
  • 27% increase in sales Yoy
  • 11% Decrease in cost

Connexity

This marketplace connects retailers and influencers. Note: influencers lift purchase intent by 2X. 49% of users rely on recommendations from influencers.

eBay

They have partnered with Facebook to monetize message apps (i.e. sending auctions through Messenger) and create collections for sharing. They’ve adopted AMP. They’ve adopted ASIN pages, which improve SERPs to be static pages, not auctions that have ended.


Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO, SEM PPC services, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.


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Creating Better Ad Copy: PPC Problem-Solving for B2B & B2C

Creating Better Ad Copy: PPC Problem-Solving for B2B & B2C was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

This is a report from SMX East 2016. Search Marketing Expo (SMX) features speakers from industry-leading digital marketers and search engine representatives. Subscribe to the BCI Blog to get coverage of key sessions sent to your inbox.

ad copy break dancer

There are more than 1.2 million advertisers in the Google Search Network. With so many business and brands competing to show up in paid search ads, how can you stand out?

Standing out is something search engine marketing leaders Pauline Jakober, Virginia Tonning and Marty Weintraub spend a lot of time thinking about.

From tips to crafting headlines to the results of testing ad copy to the effect of ad extensions, these three shared their insights and tips at SMX East 2016 through case studies and experience. Here’s what they had to say.

marty weintraub pauline jakober virginia tonning

From left to right, Marty Weintraub, Pauline Jakober and Virginia Tonning on the SMX East 2016 stage.

Testing B2C Ads with Pauline Jakober

Are you tired of seeing the same ads? So is Pauline Jakober, the CEO of Group Twenty Seven. She asks the audience, how can we be different? Will being different increase our bottom line?

Here are the things that Jakober starts with when creating ads. First, there’s an initial client interview and questionnaire. She talks to many people, including customer service reps, the sales teams and the product team. She looks at customer testimonials and customer complaints, and looks at competitor ads. She also learns the customer pain points and works to understand her audience

One of her clients is a B2C business that sells all types of dance shoes. Jakober learned the following things about her audience of dancers:

  • They replace shoes often.
  • They break in a few pairs at a time.
  • They want shoes that mold to their feet, are lightweight and flexible.
  • Their feet hurt.
  • They are brand conscious, and once they trust a brand, they stick with it.

In an effort to see the difference being different can make, Jakober set about testing whether or not a message really matters and what exactly can be achieved in the 80 characters available in a search ad.

For the dance shoe retailer, Jakober came up with this industry standard ad:

From Hip Hop to Jazz, Shop Our Shoe Brands For Your Favorite Style of Dance.

As well as ads that addressed the pain points she discovered during her research.

  • Always Replacing Your Dance Shoes? Buy a Few Pairs Instead. Buy More, Save More.
  • Sore Feet and Toes? Protect Them By Wearing Top Quality Dance Shoes. Shop Now.
  • Buy Shoes Or Slippers That Are Lightweight And Will Mold To Your Foot’s Shape.

 

B2B Ads: Leverage Everything and Think Smarter with Virginia Tonning

Virginia Tonning, the global manager of paid search at Schneider Electric, is interested in finding out how to take advantage of the precious space of characters in an ad – space is especially critical to her as the name Schneider Electric takes up so much space.

  • Use Ad Extensions: a callout, a structured snippet, a review, sitelinks, link to an app, call, location, etc.
  • When Tonning added more ad extensions to her clients’ ads, she saw a 23% higher CTR.
  • Sitelinks give you an opportunity to highlight other services people might not know you offer. Think of the space as a digital bill board.
  • We all think we know who our customer is. But that’s not enough. Test to find out what they’re interested in. When using the buzz word “Arc Flash,” there was a 43% higher CTR.
  • Consolidate similar messages/offerings. Don’t confuse your customer by having three competing ads come up from your company.
  • Help your national or international brand compete locally where it makes sense. Target by zip code and offer free shipping or same-day shipping; local rebate offers; and messages based on local events.
  • When we look so closely at our brand, we can forget what the customer is looking for. Do your research. Search for terms you are bidding on as well as known competitors.
  • Test your headlines. Tonning saw non-branded ads (i.e. brand name removed) perform significantly higher than branded ads for Schneider Electric, to the tune of a 96% higher CTR. The takeaway? Test.
Stand Out In a Sea of Search By Virginia Tonning from Search Marketing Expo – SMX

 

Marty Weintraub: Building Fantastic Ads in a Variable-based & Human Driven Creative Framework

The founder of aimClear Marty Weintraub asserts that there is a waning need for marketers when it comes to ad copy and targeting. Analysts are taking over tasks that were once the marketers’. Furthermore, in five to eight years, artificial intelligence will be at the point where AI will be able to write the most high-performance ad creative.

Ad creative is still a mostly human endeavor, so he’ll take a look at the tools available to you. With expanded ads, you can take advantage of so much more SERP real estate and have more opportunity to be creative. He’s particularly excited about mobile ads because they take up so much space.

Crafting Headline Theories: Nimble Brainstorming

The most natural thing to do is think of the finished product headline. But don’t do that. Instead, theorize and come up with every possible way to talk about something. Rather than think of the finished headline, Weintraub advises marketers to think terms of theories.

Get Approval for Creative Elements, NOT Finished Ads

Get approval for creative elements, not complete ads. It allows you more flexibility. Lock down the two keywords that are most important and key to the ad and go from there. It looks like this:

keyword creative by marty weintraub at smx

In addition to looking at synonyms, look at definitions. Use the Google Dictionary; at the bottom of every entry, there is a graph that shows a word’s use over time. This can be helpful in choosing the right word.

use over time of "intentional"

Google Dictionary’s use over time graph for the word “intentional.”

His final tip is to make every part of the purchase path cohesive. Every part of the funnel should work together. The person who designs the ad should design the landing page, and the pages that follow. They shouldn’t be disparate experiences.


Bruce Clay, Inc. is a global digital marketing agency specializing in SEO, SEM PPC services, content development and social media marketing. Looking for a partner to grow your online business presence? Let’s talk.


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The Complete Guide to Disavowing Links for Google and Bing

The Complete Guide to Disavowing Links for Google and Bing was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Google has named content and links as its top two ranking factors that affect how well a website will perform in organic search results. As such, links have a wild history of being manipulated and spammed, making their acquisition risky but still important.

A September 2016 update of Penguin, Google’s link analysis algorithm, has brought into sharp focus the sophistication with which Google judges links. SEOs must closely evaluate their every link, and be honest about its value to the brand.

Search engine link disavowal tools are needed in today’s link penalty environment. These tools cut ties between a site and links pointing at it that might be seen by engines as dark marks. As with all powerful tools, the disavow tools come with questions about proper use and concerns for abuse.

Bing-Google-disavow-links-tools

Let’s talk about the whys, whens and hows of the search engines’ tools for disavowing links. This guide provides steps on disavowing links for both Google and Bing. Get a clear map of disavow links tools best practices, including:

  • How to tell if you need the search engines’ disavow tools and the benefits of using them
  • Some drawbacks and limitations of the disavow links tools today
  • How to create and submit a disavow file to Google and how to use the Disavow Links tool from Bing

DisavowFiles is a free crowdsourced database and SEO tool that gives users insight into their websites’ backlinks. This tool was the buzz of SMX Advanced when it launched because it offers previously missing data that simplifies the process of backlink evaluation and disavowal. Read more about the free DisavowFiles tool in our announcement post.


How Disavow Files Help

Quality backlinks are a requirement of healthy search rankings. But it’s clear from the mouths of the search engines that you can’t go very far if your site is associated with off-topic or spammy inbound links. While it’s important to attract good links, it’s just as important to remove bad ones. This is why link pruning is a critical task of SEO.

A problem arises, however, when you’re stuck with a few bad backlinks. If you can’t get them removed, how do you avoid a search engine penalty for these backlinks? Fortunately, both Google and Bing have an answer: each search engine has a tool for disavowing links, or telling them the backlinks that you want them to ignore.

The search engines’ disavow links tools can help your website in many ways.

First, it can improve your inbound link profile. Disavowing a low-quality backlink essentially blocks it from the search engines’ considerations. If a search engine feels that a low-quality link is dragging down your trust factor, removing that link via disavow can help your site regain some of that trust. In fact, we’ve seen that getting rid of low-quality backlinks can provide positive results in a way similar to attracting quality links to your site. Of course there are exceptions, which is why it’s very important to properly evaluate your links before using the tool.

Another benefit to using the tool is the opportunity to discover negative SEO. While gathering link information, you might find artificial links pointing to your site that you had no part in generating. If you are indeed negatively targeted by your competition, asking nicely to remove the links may not work. While rare, negative SEO is a great example of when disavow links tools can stop poor-quality links from harming your site.


Site owners have no insight into disavow data held by Google and Bing. SEOs can be left without answers …

Are you affected by Google’s Penguin penalty?

Are you a victim of negative SEO?

How do you know if you have backlinks that others have disavowed?

Would you like to know if another site has disavowed your pages?

With the launch of DisavowFiles.com, we help to answer the questions above and aim to bring SEOs peace of mind. Every site can benefit from this free service. Start using DisavowFiles for free here


Who Needs a Disavow File?

Google has said that not everyone needs the disavow links tool. The search engine calls it an advanced tool and warns users to only use the tool if “…you believe you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, and if you are confident that the links are causing issues for you.”

So do you really need this tool?

The short answer: probably. (Sorry, Google.)

Why? There are many reasons disavowing links might be the right choice for you, the first of which is: “Not everyone has a perfect link profile,” says Robert Ramirez, former SEO Manager at Bruce Clay, Inc.

Ramirez says most sites today have a disavow file. While initially envisioned as a last resort, disavow tools have become a required last step in a complete link pruning process. As our founder Bruce Clay says: “Everyone has a weakest link. We all have links that we wish would go away.”

Following the launch of Penguin 4.0, Google representatives confirmed the usefulness of disavowing links for backlink clean-up.

@BruceClayInc we haven’t changed our recommendations for the disavow tool with this launch

— Gary Illyes (@methode) September 26, 2016

Once you’ve worked to remove as many low-quality, off-topic, or spammy inbound links from your site, if you’ve found you’re stuck with a few stragglers (which is very common), the disavow links tool might be the best way for you to avoid current or future penalty.

You might also want to use the tool if you’re turning a new leaf in your SEO strategy. You or a past vendor may have consciously created unnatural backlinks in the past. Whether or not you have been penalized for these backlinks yet, you’re eager to follow the search engines’ guidelines. Using this tool helps you to get on the path of SEO best practices.

Here are other very important reasons you might need to use the disavow links tool.

You know you need a disavow links file if:

Drawbacks and Limitations with Disavowing Links

If you fall into one or more of the categories mentioned above, the disavow links tool might be the best option for you. That said, there are drawbacks and limitations to disavowing links.

Problems with the disavow links tools:

  • No knowledge of your links or domain being disavowed by others
  • No control of insight into the disavow data black box: The search engines take disavow information from users – a list of URLs or domains you want ignored. What if we could tap into some of this data?
  • Disavowing links may backfire on the user. Sites may inadvertently damage their link profile during a clean-up effort. Ramirez notes that this often happens to sites with manual penalties. “You’re forced to prune links that still have value in your effort to appease Google. You end up getting unpenalized, but your link profile is severely depleted as a result.” We stress the importance of using search engine disavow tools with the help of a professional.

Imagine if you could see which of your backlinks other sites have disavowed. Imagine if you could see if a site has disavowed your site. Information like this would enable the SEO community as a whole to combat inbound link spam. The tool we released has addressed these issues. 

How to Build a Disavow Links File for Google

Google’s disavow tool requires you submit a list of the domains and pages you wish Google would ignore when evaluating your inbound link profile.

The first step to using the Google disavow links tool is to create a .txt file. Per Google’s instructions, this file type has to be a.txt file encoded in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII. Within this file, list the URLs and domains you want to disavow; each domain and URL should have its own line.

To include a domain-level link in the file, add “domain:” before the URL of the domain home page (for example, “domain:shadyseo.com”).

To submit a page-level link, simply list the URL.

Add notes to each submission by starting the message with “#” on the line before the URL or domain listing.

google-disavow-file-example

An example disavow file from Google Search Console Help

Once you have your .txt file, you can now submit the final list to Google’s Disavow Links tool. Here’s how:

  1. Sign into Google Search Console.
  2. Go to http://ift.tt/U0eJtA.
  3. From the dropdown menu, select the website for which you are disavowing links.
  4. Select “Disavow Links.”
  5. Select “Choose file.”
  6. Upload your .txt file.
Google disavow links tool image

A message of successful submission of a Google disavow file

Note: If you want to remove links from or add links to your disavow file in the future, upload a new and complete file. The new file will replace the previous one.

Pro Tip: Domain-Level Disavow

Google cautions users about the domain-level disavow because of potential damage it can cause. However, Ramirez says something a little different. Disavowing links on the domain level is a more thorough approach to cleaning up bad links. He says he utilizes domain-level disavow often because a “link from a blog page may also be included on a tag or category index page and as more posts are added to that tag/category, the link gets pushed further into pagination.” A link can be a moving target within a site and the only way to safely extract it is by disavowing the domain as a whole.

Bing’s Disavow Links Tool

The way to use Bing’s disavow links tool is slightly different than Google’s tool because you don’t need to upload a .txt file. Instead, you manually enter each domain or URL.

  1. Log into Bing Webmaster Tools.
  2. Go to “Configure my site” and then select “Disavow Links.”
  3. Within the Disavow Links tool, use the dropdown menu to indicate that you are disavowing a page, directory, or domain URL.
  4. Enter the URL you want to disavow and click “Disavow.”
  5. Your submission will be featured underneath the tool along with the date it was disavowed.
  6. If you want to a delete a submission, select the check box and click the “Delete” button.
Bing's disavow links tool.

The user interface for the Disavow Links tool in Bing Webmaster Tools

What’s Next?

After you’ve submitted the links you want Google and Bing to ignore, it’s time to wait. Google says it could take weeks before it recrawls your site and “reprocesses the pages.” This might be especially frustrating if you’re waiting to recover from a certain manual or algorithmic penalty. Bing says you might not notice any dramatic changes at all! At least you can sleep a little better knowing that you’ve cleaned your house of low-quality backlinks – until, of course, it’s time to do it again.

Publishing notes: This post was originally published in May 2015, then updated in June 2015 with the release of the DisavowFiles tool. It was again updated September 2016 with the announcement of the Penguin 4.0 algorithm update.



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