Pamela Parker says, “Online holiday shopping activity slowed during the Christmas week but certainly didn’t stop entirely. Traffic was still clocking in at 1.6 times the holiday baseline while conversions dropped precipitously, to only .9 times the baseline number. Traffic was especially notable on the day after Christmas, when it spiked to 2 times the baseline number. Interestingly, conversions stayed fairly strong through Christmas Eve, according to this week’s Marketing Land Online Retail Sales Report. The report is based on data from HookLogic, a company which gathers data on online... [...]

Lee Oden says, “Do you attend industry conferences? Would you like to create a greater diversity of content on a regular basis without a big jump in budget? Imagine these two scenarios: Dan looks forward to industry conferences because they provide time away from the office and give him a chance to be inspired by industry thought leaders. He also gets to network amongst peers in the industry and depending on the event city and venue, maybe he has a little fun too. Sandy plans her conference attendance according to topics and speakers. She identifies specific speaker presentations to attend... [...]

Chipper Nicodemus says, “SEO is an ever-changing industry and 2014 was no exception. Some of the biggest SEO happenings went down in 2014, so let’s review! Google’s Big Algorithm Updates Both of Google’s big algorithms, Panda and Penguin, got major updates in 2014 and both are moving to rolling updates. This means that in the future, there will be no release date for the algorithms, instead they will constantly roll out. Panda 4: In May of 2014, Google updated the Panda algorithm. This was the fourth major update to the content focused algorithm. Google also announced that the data refreshing... [...]

Travis Bliffen says, “For a long time people focused on optimizing only their website and doing so to rank in Google. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, but if you haven’t learned by now, diversification is key if you are going to rely on organic traffic to promote your business. Generally when people talk about diversifying their online marketing, they are referring to using a combination of PPC, Social, Content Marketing, and SEO. Today we are going to look at how you can diversify your organic traffic sources so you can rest easy, even after one of the many Google updates that... [...]

Danny Sullivan says, “Take a look at your “Following” list on Twitter. You might find some brands or people showing up there, even if you don’t follow them. If so, that seems due to either a new change or a newly noticed change in how Twitter is doing placement for promoted accounts. Credit to William Shatner who spotted this first — or if not first — has been the most vocal about it. He noted that MasterCard was showing up on the list of accounts he was following, even though he wasn’t actually following them”. Twitter Ads Make It Seem Like People Follow Brands, Even If... [...]

Julie Ask says, “The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opens in Las Vegas on January 6th,with global electronics manufacturers from Samsung to Sony to LG looking to outdo one another with whispers and snippets of content that will increase our anticipation of the next “must have” device. CES is typically dominated by TV’s and home entertainment systems with the same manufacturers using Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in early March for smartphones and tablets. But I both hope and expect to see some new things at CES this year. In fact, I even put them on my... [...]

Neil Patel says, “I love reading simple writing. It’s clear. It’s easy to understand. And it doesn’t force me to work hard. But simple writing is easier said than done. Even though it’s easy on the readers, it’s hard for the writer. In this article, I’ll go over what I mean by “simple” in writing, and then give you eight tips on how to simplify your writing. What do I mean by ‘simple’? Simple doesn’t mean dumb. You don’t need to talk to down to your readers. That’s not simple — that’s condescending (and possibly offensive). You... [...]

Chirag Leuva says, “In a span of only four years the ecommerce industry in US has grown more than double the size and is still continuing to keep the same pace of growth. From just $164 million turnover to $304 million in only four years is really huge and this growth story indicates the importance of web design focused on higher rate of conversion for online shopping and ecommerce sites. Whether it is business to customer or business to business web design is an important building block to propagate growth and boost conversion from traffic volume to business. Increasing the conversion rate... [...]

Mashable team says, “How do CEOs stay calm? A few pointers would be great — would also like to hear about personal experiences. Answer below by Jason M. Lemkin, partner at Storm Ventures and CEO of EchoSign. First, you must fake it. You cannot let anyone see you look like you are losing control. Ever. Once [your employees] see that, they will lose faith. Second, you need help. Ideally, two or three others on the management team who can really help carry the workload, so that you don’t have to worry about multiple key functional areas, at least not at an execution level. If you don’t... [...]

Chow says, “Finding a decent content strategy for your website may not be as easy as it would initially sound. Sometimes, we take a bigger issue with what the content LOOKS like.  Other times, we take issue with what the content SAYS.  These are both good, important things to worry about, and they are issues that need to be included in your strategy.  You obviously want to make sure that people can access the part of your site they want to easily, and they need to be able to find what they are looking for in a timely manner. Over the last few years, I have noticed more and more websites opting... [...]