Olivia Perek says, “You’d think social selling would be old news, but the sad reality is that less than half of frontline salespeople are using social media for prospecting, monitoring conversations, interacting with customers, or gathering intelligence. That means the majority of salespeople are ignoring the power of social media to help them engage and better understand prospects. The majority? Now that’s just not right, and it could be hurting your team’s chances to succeed. For instance, did you know that B2B buyers complete up to 90% of the buying process before they contact... [...]

Rand Fishkin says, “This question, posed by Alex Moravek in our Q&A section, has a somewhat complicated answer. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand discusses how organizations might perform well in search rankings without doing any link building at all, relying instead on the strength of their content to be deemed relevant and important by Google”. Is It Possible to Have Good SEO Simply by Having Great Content MOZ Blog  [...]

Greg Sterling says, “A Northern Virginia locksmith has sued Google, Yellowbook (hibu) and Ziplocal under multiple state and federal laws, including the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), “to remove fraudulent locksmith listings from their search results.” The complaint alleges that Google and the other defendants permitted illegal locksmith listings in search results causing $8.4 million in lost earnings/profits to the plaintiff, which was at one point an advertiser in each of the defendant services”. Locksmith Sues Google, Others Claiming Spam Local Listings... [...]

Eric Bader says, “Marketers have a multi-device conundrum because the consumers they want to connect with distribute their attention between multiple devices. As connected devices like smartphones and tablets have grown in popularity, marketers have addressed the growth by engaging and acquiring consumer intelligence in silos. As marketers followed audiences to smartphones, they got to know and engage the smartphone consumer. In just two years from 2011 to 2013, smartphone ownership in the U.S. jumped 22 percentage points from 43 percent to 65 percent. Along the way to 65 percent smartphone... [...]

MarketingProfs’ ‘Mobile Marketing’ virtual conference series starts from Friday, November 14 at 11am ET. Key speakers of the event are Andrew Wiesenberg, Tom Webster, Richard Hill and Ryan Whillier. More about ‘Mobile Marketing’ virtual conference Mobile marketing and optimization is no longer just the proverbial icing on the cake. The mobile revolution has fundamentally changed customer behaviors and expectations, and thus, how we must do business if we want to be relevant. Are you meeting the mobile marketing challenge? If not, this event is for you. Join us for... [...]

Curt Keller says, “All the great email content in the world isn’t going to do your brand a bit of good if no one opens your email—which is why you need attention-grabbing headlines. So apply these top tips and become a master at writing subject lines! 1. Use the 50/50 rule It seems absolutely preposterous that you spend as much time crafting the subject line, along with the preheader, as you do writing the entire text of the rest of the email, but savvy online marketers are well aware that it is mandatory. It takes time and concentration to write great subject lines. 2. Throw out... [...]

If you want an enduring online business, you need to build a mailing list. To do that, you need get convince people to opt in to your list. At 10 AM EDT, Marius Price & Alex Costan release their new WordPress plugin, Optin Gate to make it easier to get opt-ins. This new plugin will help build your list in ways that were once impossible: • It comes with never-seen-before beautiful optin forms that are hard to ignore. • It comes with a live editor so you can design a guru-style optin without touching a single line of code. • It comes with split-testing so you can track with version of your... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Earlier this month, Google said it was actively working on a fix for Trusted Stores merchants to be able to display the program’s badge on secure pages. Google began notifying merchants enrolled in its e-commerce verification program that they can now display the Trusted Stores badge on HTTPS pages. Trusted Stores merchants trying to convert their sites to HTTPS had run into problemsbecause the Trusted Stores badge was specifically designed not to display on secure pages such as cart and checkout. But, to be Trusted Stores compliant, the badge must appear on all other... [...]

Amanda Martin says, “If you’re a super smarty-pants, you’ll read that headline and be like, “DUH, Amanda! Writing a tweet for inbound marketing is super easy.” But is it really, super smarty-pants? Believe it or not, there are still companies out there that aren’t on board the social media train. Notice I said train, and not bandwagon. Social media is riding the largest upward trend in its history, and it’s not going anywhere any time soon. It’s only going to evolve and leave behind anyone who didn’t hop on board”. 3 Tips to Writing Tweets That Fit Your Inbound Marketing... [...]

Verónica Maria Jarski says, “Although Americans spend $25.4 billion each year on professional sports, sports websites have a conversion rate of just 1%. How can those sports websites—and other businesses—increase their website sales? “A/B testing could help you to double, triple, or even quadruple conversion rates in a matter of weeks,” states Wingify in an infographic. “That means you could sell significantly more tickets or products.” Some 72% of companies test buttons such as Book Now or Buy Now on their websites, according to data cited by Wingify. Moreover,... [...]