Don't give me that look. Depending on where you work, that might sound like a silly question. Everything needs a business case in some places. And I understand that. I used to work for IBM, which is one of those places in love with justifications for how you spend money before you drop a dime. And you can put together business cases for Internet marketing projects, but there is another way, too. In fact, I actually started the IBM search marketing program without any business case at all. You might be able to follow my lead where you work, not just with search marketing, but with any kind of digital marketing...
This is an issue that has received a great deal of attention over the last month or so. Ever since Matt Cutts' article 'The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO', marketers and webmasters have been scrambling trying to figure out whether there's still a place for guest blogging in their marketing strategies....
Web usability expert Steve Krug starts off his popular book on the topic with these words:People often ask me: "What's the most important thing I should do if I want to make sure my Web site is easy to use?" The answer is simple. It's not "Nothing important should ever be more than two clicks away," or "Speak the user's language," or even "Be consistent." It's "Don't make me think!"This exposes a common problem. YOU, the person that designed or contributed to or commissioned and approved the site don't have to think when YOU use the site because YOU know...
I've been talking to some small business owners recently who are all complaining that they are getting squeezed out of social media, search marketing, and other forms of Internet marketing by the big guys-big companies with big budgets. At the same time, I've been hearing from frustrated large company marketers that they cannot break through the clutter and that their budgets don't seem to help. This would seem, on the surface, to be a simple question. Either the small companies or the big companies have a point, and the other ones are smoking something. So. who's right?...
One of the biggest challenges businesses face is winning new customers. When a new customer makes a purchase or signs up for an e-mail list, you're immediately presented with a one-time opportunity to impress that customer. What you do next could make the difference between losing that customer or creating a long-term relationship....
Google's Universal Analytics (UA) is a more flexible alternative to a standard Google Analytics account; making it easier to customize account settings and providing a new opportunity to collect data that a standard account doesn't automatically collect (like data from any digital device).Do it now, or have them make you do it laterGoogle just launched a two-step process for upgrading your existing properties from Classic Analytics to Universal Analytics (called the "Upgrade Center"). It's starting to roll out in the Admin section of all accounts. Once you see it there, you can go ahead and complete the upgrade. Apparently, any...
Content strategy is currently one of the biggest buzzwords of online marketing, but many companies are still learning how to get it right. One of the most common reasons that content strategies fail is because companies neglect audience feedback. Many companies only publish commercial, salesy content that screams "buy me" without offering much value. This is an unfortunate trend - one that not only wastes marketing efforts and budgets, but results in ineffective online content and poor branding....
Having just come across Google's new Publisher plugin for WordPress, I wanted to investigate whether it (a) makes life easier and (b) has any real SEO value....
It's common knowledge that in general the homepage of any site is the most important page. Usability professionals have called it the "beachfront real estate" of any website. The big obstacle we run into with this though is that, of course, everyone wants a piece of it! Because this is the case, your homepage design just might be overrun with content competing for user's attention. If you can find it in yourself to admit it, this is probably limiting its ability to allow your customers to service themselves with it--which is costing you money. After all, the homepage is many...
Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} Now, in a sense, that's a dumb question, because we all need to be both at times, but I was put in the frame of mind to ask it because of a recent encounter with a prospective client. As I explained how important social media is to her organic search results, she stopped me and barked, "I want search, not social," showing the irritation of someone who has been sold something...
I know more than a few bloggers and small business owners that have this to say about SEO:"Forget it!"With Google rolling out updates on a monthly basis and constantly adding new wrinkles to their increasingly complex algorithm, it can seem impossible for the average blogger to keep up.And with hundreds of horror stories about sites getting slapped with Google penalties for taking their SEO too far, playing it safe by "just publishing great content" can seem like a smart move.But it's not....
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