I know the last thing you need is yet another social media account to keep up with – believe me, I get it! But ignore Google+ at your own peril. It is becoming more and more important in search engine optimization (SEO) for Google:
We’ve covered this — why are we talking about this topic yet again? Because we recently heard inside scoop that Google is increasing the importance of the +1 button in its organic ranking algorithm, and it eventually may count for even more than inbound links!
Read more…
Lee Kantor (Atlanta Business RadioX), Dawn Ely (Corporate Conversations Host & President of Palladium Chief Legal Officers) & Christian Griffith (VP Digital Strategy, Freebairn & Co.)
Lee Kantor (Atlanta Business RadioX), Dawn Ely (Corporate Conversations Host & President of Palladium Chief Legal Officers) & Stacy Williams (Prominent Placement))
If you weren’t able to tune in to hear the livestream of “Corporate Conversations” last Tuesday, here’s an audio clip of just my portion of the show, and here’s a longer clip including the first half with Christian Griffith of Freebairn & Company.
Not always seeing your title tags in Google SERPs? Last week there was a post on the Google Webmaster Central blog entitled Better page titles in search results where the blogger, Pierre Farr, explained how Google chooses the title tags to show in their search results. He says Google may choose to display an alternate title for your page using algorithms that generate alternative titles to make it easier for users to recognize relevant pages in the search results.
As with most things related to Google’s search results, it all comes back to relevancy. Read more…
Because once just isn’t enough! 
Tuesday, January 17, 10:00 – 11:00 am (audio available anywhere)
Tune in to Corporate Conversations to hear Christian Griffith of Freebairn & Company and me talk about the growth of digital marketing with host Dawn Ely. If you can’t stream us live, a podcast will be available for on demand listening.
Thursday, January 19, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm (Atlanta)
Join the Independent Counselors SIG of the Georgia PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) for “Marketing your IC Business in 2012.” I’ll be on a panel along with Lynne Andrews of Marketing Expectations, Nora DePalma of O’Reilly-DePalma, and Greg Euston of McGraw Euston Associates. Dan Curran of Curran Public Relations will moderate.
The event will be held at The Ravinia Club and lunch is included. Fees range from $20-$45, depending on membership status and how early you register. More info.
I remember reading in a marketing class about a department store that used surveillance footage to analyze how people moved through the store. Taking a long-term view of the data, the marketing team looked for trends: Which areas of the store attract the most customers? Are certain areas correlated, in that a large percentage of users who stop at Area A then go straight to Area B? What is the first area that customers tend to visit after entering the store? Using that information, they rearranged the layout of the store to maximize the amount of time and money customers spend there.
Read more…
While the world is moving toward more transparency and more data availability, Google recently backtracked on this front. In a move unnoticed by most, Google is now blocking organic keyword data from being captured for searchers who are logged into Google or searching on Google’s secure (https) site. This means that when marketers look at their web analytics, keywords used by these searchers are not displayed, but are lumped together under “(not provided).”
Why should you care? Because taking away this data makes it harder for marketers to measure the performance of their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. When we know which keywords drive traffic – and more importantly, conversions – we can invest more of our time and effort into those keywords rather than less valuable ones. We can ensure that landing pages are directly relevant to the keyword that brought the searcher to that page. In general, we can continue to hone our efforts and maximize our results.
Read more…
According to Google, “… rich snippets provide you with the ability to help Google highlight aspects of your page. Whether your site contains information about products, recipes, events or apps, a few simple additions to your markup can result in more engagement with your content — and potentially more traffic to your site.” Most of us are familiar with rich snippets and know they can increase click through rates for search results.
We know rich snippets are important, but implementation can be daunting and confusing. I’m not going to attempt to discuss the technical aspects of rich snippets or go into a how-to lesson — I’ll leave that to the experts. Google Webmaster Tools recently published a series of instructional videos about rich snippets. Video topics include a general introduction, types of rich snippets, product searches and troubleshooting, among others.
Not sure if you have rich snippets? Google also has a rich snippet testing tool that allows you to see if a web page contains a rich snippet markup, and, if so, preview the search result for that page.
Does your site contain rich snippets? Use the tool and find out (it’s painless, I promise). Yes? Good for you! No? Try them out and see whether rich snippets have an impact on your click-through-rates.
As millions of us are furiously jotting down ideas for our personal New Year’s Resolutions, here’s one resolution corporate communicators and marketers ought to include: adding an online newsroom to their websites. Consider this fact for a moment: less than half of all businesses even have an online newsroom. The intent to develop one is pending, however. And 2012 is almost here. But for now, this means that the majority of PR folks, corporate communicators, and marketers lack any sort of online newsroom presence. Talk about an untapped market! Given the recent Freshness updates – where preference is heavily tilted towards breaking news, such as the upcoming Presidential primaries or Occupy Wall Street, and frequently updated customer reviews on new products, like Amazon’s Kindle Fire – it’s clear that Google is increasingly relying on a website’s online newsroom as the primary source of trending, newsworthy, and up-to-date content. Read more…
After performing a search, Google offers a new option to narrow down search results. Under “More search tools”, you can now select “Verbatim” to limit traffic to just what you literally searched. Google has a short explanation here which suggests that the tool eliminates spelling corrections, personalized search based on your search history, synonyms, similar terms, and words with the same stem. Basically, you just get what you’re looking for without Google’s search suggestions.
The buzz is that Verbatim search is Google’s substitute for the phased out “+”operator. Previously, this could be utilized to make sure that a specific word in a specific form appeared in the search results. Google’s intentions might be to now utilize “+” to perform some function related to Google+. Only time will tell! Read more…
By most accounts, Black Friday was a huge success. Despite the shaky economy and the threat of occupy Black Friday protests, sales were the strongest since 2007 as national revenue increased 6.6% to a record $11.4 billion according to ShopperTrak.
But customers reported mixed feelings about the various deals and many retailers reported thinning crowds after the midnight surge. And as the now infamous “pepper spray” incident at Walmart proved, once again, Black Friday shopping is not for the faint of heart.
Needless to say, Cyber Monday presents a better experience for many and experts are predicting that Cyber Monday 2011 will be the biggest online shopping day in history, with online sales expected to exceed $1 billion dollars. Read more…
