The Big Picture for May 11
by Anvil on May 12, 2011AdwordsYour weekly dose of search & social news and insight from the fine folks of Anvil and Formic…enjoy!
PPC
- Facebook Updates Ad Analytics – Moving away from traditional PPC metrics like CPM, new analytics in Facebook Ads focus on Reach, Frequency, Social Reach and Connections.
- Introducing New Ways to Reach Your Customers on Tablets – While iPad-specific targeting is already available, AdWords will soon allow you to target the entire tablet device category.
- Profit per Impression a Better Metric for Ad Testing – A new way to evaluate ad copy performance, including step-by-step instructions for calculating using Analytics.
SEO
- Impacted by Google’s Panda Update? Google Asks You to Consider This – Google has compiled a list of questions to ask yourself if impacted. If you can’t answer yes to most of these, then consider a new content strategy.
- 5 Often Surprisingly Overlooked SEO Tactics – The biggie? Don’t forget submitting your XML sitemap to Bing’s Webmaster Tools. Bing tends to have a more difficult time discovering content than Google.
Analytics
- Preview of Google +1 for Websites – Just weeks away, button generation for your site plus activity stats in Webmaster Tools.
- Issues Affecting Google Analytics Data for April – Custom reports, advanced segments and secondary dimensions are returning 0 visit data for some users.
Link Development
- Getting Big Links From Big Media Sites: The Fundamentals – Learning who to pitch your idea to and when can be just as important of the details of the story that you are using to try to get a link. Learn how to time your pitch just right.
- How To Use Free Alerts For Link Building – Use Google Alerts for aid your link development and have the ideas and opportunities come to you.
Social Media
- How to Build a Free Social Media Monitoring Dashboard – With an RSS reader and some Internet savvy, you can build a powerful social media listening post at no cost. This article will show you how!
- 5 Ways to Use Twitter to Connect with Local Customers – Twitter allows you to locate people who live or tweet in your city or neighborhood, people you know, as well as people you don’t yet know. This makes Twitter the ideal tool for infiltrating your neighborhood.
- HOW TO: Poll Consumers on Facebook – We’ve all seen those Facebook polls asking you what Disney Princess you most resemble. However, you can turn those inane surveys into something valuable for your business or brand.
Local Search Engine Optimization
- Consumer Attitudes Towards Recommendations of Local Businesses – 52% of customers would be more likely to recommend a business if it had a good special offer.
- LocalReponse Eyes Big Brands With Full-Service Check-In Advertising – Tool aggregates check-ins across multiple social networks and allows you to offer users special deals when they check-in.
- Google Places API Announced – At present, four basic services are available for the developers – Place Searches, Place Details Requests, Place Check-ins and Place Reports.
- Google Places Will Now Let Users “See” Inside Store – The upcoming feature virtually places users inside a shop for a 360-degree look around
Conversion Optimization
- Which Test Won? – Which Offer Copy Generated 74% More Sales Leads?
B2C
- Why Your Online Retail Strategy Needs F-Commerce – Great article outlining 5 reasons to incorporate ecommerce strategies into your Facebook page. Facebook + Commerce = F-Commerce.
B2B
- Leads via LinkedIn Groups Most Likely to Convert – Recent study conducted by MarketingProfs confirms that 1 in 4 visits to an site from LinkedIn are enterprise visitors and highly likely to convert.
- Top Social Media Objectives for 2011 – MarketingSherpa study outlining how B2B marketers are setting goals for their social media programs. Increasing site traffic and brand builder were the two top objectives.
Retail/Storefront
- Review Content Matters – Zappos hired the Amazon Mechanical Turk to proofread the reviews on its site, correcting errors without changing the content of the reviews. They claim to have seen a “substantial” revenue increase as a result.
Web Design
- Stipple – A relatively new start up that will allow you to tag virtually anything within photos ie. friends, products, photographers, links, etc.
- Concatenating your SEO – An SEO solution for large scale e-commerce companies.
Mobile
- The Device Impact of Tablets – Desktop, laptops, and netbooks are being used less thanks to tablets. Top reasons for buying a tablet: portability, ease of interface, and the fast start up.
- 14 Differences Between Mobile Search & Desktop Search Results – Organic search results differ significantly on mobile devices. Although not a comprehensive list, a good article detailing the differences between the two.