Rachel Sprung says, “Now more than ever, businesses are focusing on creating delightful mobile website experiences. After all, 80% of Internet users are using smartphones to search online. What’s more, marketers are gearing up for a big change Google plans to make to their algorithm starting on April 21, 2015. Google wrote in their official blog that they will be “expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal,” and their update should have a significant effect on marketers. When Google makes this change, it will affect 40% of mobile search queries.... [...]

David Nield says, “Since it launched to the public at the end of 2005 (the very first video is still online), YouTube has come to dominate online video in a way that few businesses manage to dominate anything on the Web. Today, it boasts more than a billion users, who are uploading more than 300 hours of video every minute and generating billions of views every single day. So far, so rosy—but YouTube isn’t exactly the home run that these figures might suggest it is, and it’s facing increasing pressure from all sides. Last month the Wall Street Journal reported that YouTube was... [...]

Stephanie Walden says, “Top marketers these days are quick to point to an overarching trend in the industry: With the rise of public forums such as social media, fewer companies are finding success with “mass marketing” tactics and, instead, focusing on personalized, one-on-one approaches to customers. Luckily for Southwest, this type of approach to customer service — not treating every individual as a carbon copy — comes as second nature. It’s “in the company’s DNA,” says CMO Kevin Krone. “Everybody is unique and has their own story; we want to... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Every year, Facebook holds its F8 conference where it makes key announcements and launches new offerings. This year was one of the biggest yet and dozens of announcements were made. Here are the five most important for brands and marketers. Messenger Platform Reports that Facebook would be opening its Messenger app to third parties were correct. With the newly unveiled Messenger Platform, third party developers, including brands like ESPN, will be able to reach the more than 600m Facebook members who use Messenger on a daily basis. Apps can be installed from within Messenger,... [...]

Rainmaker team says, “In previous episodes of New Rainmaker with Brian Clark, Brian and Robert Bruce have discussed the “why” of starting a podcast (or podcast network). In this one, they talk about the “how.” As many of you know by now, it has been almost two weeks since Copyblogger Media launched an on-demand audio network called Rainmaker.FM. Thanks to you, things have gone pretty well in that time. What you don’t yet know is the story behind that launch — the planning, production, and marketing of the 10 distinct shows that are currently airing. Not to mention the next crop... [...]

MOZ team says, “There’s a common misconception that SEO is a “one and done” task — that you clean up and optimize a site, and once that’s done, you can focus your efforts elsewhere. There’s so much more to the day-to-day work of an SEO, though, and in today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand walks us through those ongoing parts of the job“. What Does an SEO Do In Their Day-to-Day Work MOZ Blog  [...]

Mike Del Coure says, “We’ve all seen them before: the frustrating little pages that appear when you click a broken link on a website. Maybe the developer forgot to remove that link when they deleted that blog post. Or maybe they updated the site and an extra sneaky character got into the link URL. Whatever the case, sending a website visitor to a 404 page is never a good thing. Ideally, we’d want our sites locked tight and linked right. But these things do happen. However, we can use this as an opportunity to not only build brand loyalty but delight customers at the same time. Here... [...]

Ronell Smith says, ““We’re in dire need of some SEO help,” said the owner of a small, successful business located in central Texas. “I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong, but something’s clearly amiss. No one’s reading or sharing the content on our blog, and the information we share on social media just sits there.” It’s impossible to work in marketing without hearing grievances like this one over and over. When things go wrong on a website, people often point fingers at technical or on-page SEO. Given the importance of organic search and the role SEO plays in that... [...]

Joe Pulizzi says, “Of all the segments of content marketers we’ve studied over the last year, technology marketers are the most focused on lead generation as a goal for content marketing. While tech marketers were the group most focused on lead generation last year as well, the percentage has increased from 86% in 2014 to 91% this year. It’s also notable that the tech marketers are shifting away a bit from brand awareness (which does not generate leads) as a primary goal, and more toward getting measurable results (using leads as one measure). Those are some of the key insights from... [...]

Adriana Lee says, “WhatsApp doesn’t want to be a platform. Co-founder Brian Acton, on a panel Wednesday at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, made that very clear. Unlike its sibling service Messenger, which has started courting outside developers and businesses, all that matters to WhatsApp is that the service remain stable, simple and unfettered for its worldwide audience of 100 million monthly active users. That matters to parent company Facebook too, but likely for different reasons. WhatsApp—which sold to the social network last year for $19 billion dollars—offers an interesting... [...]