PPC
- Relevancy and Quality Policy Update for Ads Targeting the US and Canada – Going into effect today, new adCenter guidelines could have a significant effect on PPC landing pages, particularly standalone lead forms.
- Is the Tail Killing Your Bing PPC Program? – In the wake of the recent match type adjustments, Rimm-Kaufman presents data suggesting that adCenter doesn’t like long-tail keywords, decelerating ad groups containing large volumes of low volume keywords.
- The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords Quality Score – A great look at how, when and where it’s calculated, some common misconceptions, and what to do if it has tanked.
- Google Hates Your New Ads – Without any performance history to go on, AdWords takes anywhere between a few hours and a few days to reward fresh ads with high rankings. Especially relevant for the upcoming holidays, this article includes 5 steps you can take to minimize this effect.
- How To Leverage Product Feeds to Maximize PPC ROI – Product feeds can be a lot more useful than uploads into Google Product Search with these 5 great tips
SEO
- Use Schema.org attributes to customize +1 Snippets – +Snippets let you put your best face forward by customizing exactly what appears when your content is shared.
- When to Buy a Keyword that Organically Ranks #1 – Results of one of many tests for a non branded keyword:
Analytics
- Google Analytics Visits Metric Change – Avinash explains the implications for Google Analytics changing how a visit is tracked (how the start, duration and ending of a visit is calculated).
- Facebook Had 467 Billion Page Views in June, Not 1 Trillion – According to comScore’s widely considered more reliable figures, Facebook only reached half the estimated page views others believed it achieved.
- Link multiple AdWords accounts to one Google Analytics account – New feature. Blog post includes step by step directions how to hook this up.
Link Building
- Broken Link Building In Action – Identifying sites in your niche with broken links on pages such as resource pages can be an effective way to increase high quality inbound links. Real email examples are included.
Social Media
- How To Run A Successful Social Media Contest – Here are 5 strategies to turn your contest into a valuable, long term, marketing machine.
- 7 Tips of How to Deal with Upset Facebook Fans – Here are some tips to try to address unhappy fans quickly and with the best results.
- 9 Reasons Why Your Content Is Not Shared On Social Networks: New Research – In today’s business atmosphere, individuals do not trust businesses to do the right thing or provide accurate information. You have to gain the trust of your fans or followers first, then be sure your posts are not too long and hopefully add in some humor as it shows to have the highest re-posting statistics.
- Prediction: Facebook Will Enter Search Market Next Year – This opinion piece on TechCrunch gives 5 reasons for Facebook joining the search industry and what that means for the Internet.
Local Search Engine Optimization
- AdWords Express: Things That Are Easy To Hate – A user clicking on star ratings is taken to the Google Places page rather than the designated website set by the ad – and the advertiser is charged for the click
- Facebook Adds “Around the Web” Links to Places – Some Facebook Place Pages are now display links from 3rd party local sites like Yelp, Foursquare, and SCVNGR. Users can follow these links and see which Facebook friends have checked-in there, and provide more useful information overall.
B2C
- Google Introduces +1 Button for Retailers – Partnering with PowerReviews and Bazaarvoice, ecommerce sites can now easily install +1 buttons on every product page for more powerful recommendations for their visitors. Debut sites include Jockey and Golfsmith.
- Solid Ecommerce Spending Recovery Suggests Strong Holiday Season – While ecommerce share of total retail sales is small (4.2%), it has been steadily increasing and is predicted to reach new highs throughout Q4.
- How Large Retailers Integrate Physical Stores with Ecommerce Sites – Good best practices including order pick up, returns, inventory, consistency and customer service.
B2B
- 6 Tactics to Create More Must Read B2B Newsletters – Great ideas to improving the success generated from your company newsletter, including customizing content by segmenting your list and designing the newsletter for mobile reading.
- What Makes Your B2B marketing Footprint Unique? – Interesting infographic by Marketo on all that goes in to a successful B2B marketing program.
- Most B2Bs Spend Under 5% of Revenue on Marketing – MarketingSherpa report outlining the correlation between reporting and winning more marketing budget. 33% of B2B companies don’t track ROI, and 35% don’t report their contributions to upper management, which in turn causes marketing budget to go to other functional areas.
Web Design
- Finding images for your Blog – Some great places to find open licensed images to accompany your blog posts.
- Visually optimizing your website text – Simple fixes to make sure your text is appealing and legible for your viewers.
Mobile
- Six Ways Retailers Are Using Mobile to Supplement the Store – Ad value to customers who visit your brick and mortar location through the targeted use of mobile. [INTERNAL – A couple cool ideas in here for Nike]
- Changing Demographics of Tablet and eReader Owners in the US – tablets and eReaders aren’t just for men under the age of 34 anymore.
- Platform differences in smartphone adoption – how Android, iPhone, and Blackberry adoption rates differ among various socioeconomic groups.