April 13, 2016, marked Kobe Bryant’s final game in the NBA. He went out in a blaze of glory, scoring an insane 61 points. Kobe’s career will most likely be remembered for three things: the contents of his trophy case, the rings on his fingers and the color of his jersey. His achievements should be applauded, but it’s important to keep in mind what it took for him to reach “legend” status. He became an all-star on the court by giving everything he had to the game of basketball. This requires a ton of mental focus and dedication, but the results speak for themselves. Although the court you and I play on looks a little different from Kobe’s, we can learn a lot from him about how to take our digital advertising game to the next level. Let’s take a look at what Kobe Bryant can teach us about being an AdWords All-Star. Kobe lesson #1: Study the film Watching game film is the best way to spot what you’re doing right and what you’re doing … [Read more...] about What Kobe Bryant can teach you about succeeding with AdWords
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5 Things You Need to Know to Succeed With Bing
With the impending implosion of Yahoo’s disappointing Panama project and seeming overnight surrender of search to the big boys of Google and Microsoft it’s time we all started paying a little more attention to Bing and particularly Microsoft adCenter. Just the other day I was talking with some bright minds in the search space and when we got to the topic of Bing the lights were on but no one was home. Which got me think about how since its launch most of us have largely ignored the MSN/Bing advertising platform, as illustrated by the small number of advertisers on Bing compared against Google’s estimated 1.5 million advertisers, due in large part to the limited consumer reach and previously very poor functionality. And while it’s still a few months away I think it is high time we start thinking about how we manage search in Bing and want to share with you 5 things you’ll need to know to find success with Bing. Dynamic Text Insertion: Most advertisers are … [Read more...] about 5 Things You Need to Know to Succeed With Bing
Dealing with Google’s Algorithm Changes
In the world of SEO, we have to be ready to pivot fast. A single tweak to an algorithm can destroy everything we’ve built and force us to re-adapt quickly. These changes happen on an almost daily basis. It’s part of what makes the so field dynamic. You might know this all too well; you might still be struggling with some leftover rank decline from past algorithms. I’ve seen some websites that have yet to recover from the damage of early Panda rollouts. Is that the case for your site? In this article, you’ll find a comprehensive strategy that should help you with current and future algorithm changes. I will carefully explain the last four big algorithm updates from Google and lay out a strategy for dealing with the damage. I will limit myself to Google algorithm updates from 2015. In each section, I will explain three things: What the Algorithm Means: What was the purpose of the algorithm? I’ll explain why Google decided to roll it out. What the … [Read more...] about Dealing with Google’s Algorithm Changes
Boost Your SEO Efforts with Effective Traffic-Getting Strategies!
In many ways, being an in-house SEO is like working on your own site. You will develop a personal relationship with the website/s you are responsible for. Actually this is the only way to work. If you don’t feel at least a little passion for what you’re doing then you’re in the wrong job. And speaking of passion, we need to talk about getting traffic. Now that may be what you consider ‘outside’ your in-house SEO duties, but since the art of true SEO will result in a huge increase in traffic, using any ethical tactics you can to bring more traffic will only make you more indespensable as a member of your company team. The newer your website the more important it is to try and find other ways of getting eyeballs to your site, because: SEO only improves with time (meaning you may not get the traffic you need to begin with) Some of us (me included) believe that Google includes traffic as a metric when ranking sites. Unfortunately though, many of the schemes … [Read more...] about Boost Your SEO Efforts with Effective Traffic-Getting Strategies!
How to Kick Ass at Amazon SEO With Robyn Johnson [PODCAST]
Podcast: Download Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS Visit our Marketing Nerds archive to listen to other Marketing Nerds podcasts! How can you kick ass at Amazon SEO? In this episode of Marketing Nerds, Amazon and e-commerce expert Robyn Johnson joins SEJ Executive Editor Kelsey Jones to share the latest insights and best practices for Amazon SEO. Robyn and Kelsey discuss: The black hat Amazon SEO practices that Amazon has recently started cracking down on What statistics you can view for your product pages What’s coming next for Amazon sellers in 2017 (hint: voice search will be huge!). Robyn: Everything in Amazon is very structured and data-based. There’s some pieces of data that are involved in your organic search then there’s some pieces, like the bullets and descriptions, which they tell us are not. Some people have seen that it can make a difference, but for sure, it plays a role in PPC and Amazon sponsored products. The biggest thing is knowing which pieces … [Read more...] about How to Kick Ass at Amazon SEO With Robyn Johnson [PODCAST]
Does Google Discriminate Against Some Businesses?
Google conspiracy theories aren’t new. Everyone likes to believe their rankings have tanked thanks to something other than poor-quality content or bad linking practices. In reality, a lot of people are guilty of less-than-great SEO. At the same time, it’s hard to ignore the fact that some businesses, no matter how “white hat” their methods, can never seem to gain traction in the SERPs. If you’re having trouble getting the traffic you want, it might just be conspiracy fact. A Small Business Problem: The Adwords Platform Isn’t Very Friendly One of the first nuggets of marketing advice you’re given, as a small business owner, is to market online using Google Adwords. It’s supposed to be a relatively predictable, and affordable, method for generating new leads. But, that train left the station years ago. Google Adwords is expensive, and it’s mostly where large corporations (or super-savvy and experienced marketers) play around with ad … [Read more...] about Does Google Discriminate Against Some Businesses?
How to Manage International Teams with Moriah Scoble
Our next SEJ Summit will be held in the tech center of the San Francisco Bay Area in Mountain View, California. Although I won’t be attending, I did have a chance to speak with some of our awesome speakers for the event, including Moriah Scoble, Head of SEO at Ring Central. Moriah will be speaking about The 3 Pitfalls of Managing International Teams, and sharing stories of her own experience in managing teams around the world. If you’d like to see Moriah and our other seven speakers, we still have a small number of FREE tickets available for our Silicon Valley event. The SEJ Summit series is possible courtesy of our partner, Searchmetrics. Their “search experience optimization” makes digital marketing better, faster, and more profitable. Request an invite today here. Here’s my interview with Moriah: 1. In 2013, you shifted your focus from nonprofit leadership to SEO. What facilitated this change and how has your past experience helped you? My last … [Read more...] about How to Manage International Teams with Moriah Scoble
The Growing Pains of SXSW: An Interview with Brian Solis
2014 represents the 20th anniversary of SXSW Interactive. Even at the ripe age of 20, the show is still experiencing growing pains…in a good way. “In 2014, SXSW was a festival of digital camaraderie, a place where geeks, the Internet famous, celebrities, and those who are curious or who want to learn gather to celebrate and share in who they are and who they want to be.” – Brian Solis. Brian Solis is one of the preeminent thought leaders in marketing and disruptive technologies in the world, a long time SXSW attendee, and the person, along with Stephanie Agresta, in charge of the social media lounge at SXSW. While at the festival, I was able to catch-up with Brian in between his public appearances and talk to him about his experience at SXSW this year. When I asked for his thoughts on the show, Brian said that overall it was an incredible experience. In addition to all he does during SXSW, he also serves as an advising friend to the organizers of Interactive … [Read more...] about The Growing Pains of SXSW: An Interview with Brian Solis
Google’s Knol Launches: Like Wikipedia, With Moderation
After six monthsof testing, Google has formally rolled outKnol, a service designed to letpeople create pages of knowledge on any topic they choose. While Google saysKnol is not designed to compete with Wikipedia — and there are goodarguments to back this up — I still think the easiest way to describe theservice is Wikipedia with moderation. Below, more about this, the service ingeneral, and some of the issues it may raise for Google. As many are aware, Wikipedia allows anyone to create and edit pages onall types of topics. Need to know about the BS 546 electrical plug used byold houses in Britain? I once did, and the Wikipedia community has created apage about the topic. The collaborative advantage to Wikipedia is also its disadvantage. Sinceanyone cancontribute, some introduce factual errors or overtlyvandalize articles (seeGeorge WashingtonDid What According To Wikipedia???). It’s one reason that Wikipedia isconsidering moderation. Like Wikipedia, Knol (unlike many … [Read more...] about Google’s Knol Launches: Like Wikipedia, With Moderation
Google Takes First Big Bite Into Rich Snippet Search With Recipes
Food content webmasters who’ve dutifully been coding their pages with recipe rich snippets since Google announced them in April get a big reward today. Google is rolling out recipe search, taking advantage of the structured data to launch a whole category with the same prominence as image and video search. It’s playing catch-up in the sense that Bing has featured special treatment for recipe content since last January, and it added a dedicated tab for recipe search last Spring. However, Google still represents the lion’s share of searches. The project marks the first time that Google has used rich snippets to launch what’s effectively a new search engine, and one could speculate that more is in store. The company has also worked to spread the use of rich snippets for people, reviews, video and events. “This is the first time we’re using this kind of structured data and actually building a structured search on top of microdata that people are marking … [Read more...] about Google Takes First Big Bite Into Rich Snippet Search With Recipes