Marketers are human, after all. We want to look like flawless experts to our clients, but we know that surface appearance usually looks better than reality. What happens when the reality becomes known, and it’s not flattering? One recent case occurred in Australia. The Asos online fashion store printed 17,000 bags and there was a typo in the printing. They handled it gracefully and earned a lot of goodwill in the process. They admitted the error, with humor, on Twitter. People loved the story and interacted with it over and over. People even are clamoring for the misprinted bags when they... [...]

Wall says, “One wonders how Yahoo Search revenues keep growing even as Yahoo’s search marketshare is in perpetual decline. Then one looks at a Yahoo SERP and quickly understands what is going on. Here’s a Yahoo SERP test I saw this morning”. SMX East 2011 Recap for SEOBook SEO Book Blog  [...]

Peterd says, “In the last post, we looked at how SEO has always been changing, but one thing remains constant – the quest for information. Given people will always be on a quest for information, and given there is no shortage of information, but there is limited time, then there will always be a marketing imperative to get your information seen either ahead of the competition, or in places where the competition haven’t yet targeted. Channels My take on SEO is broad because I’m concerned with the marketing potential of the search process, rather than just the behaviour of the Google... [...]

Peterd says, “In recent years, the biggest change to the search landscape happened when Google chose to withhold keyword data from webmasters. At SEOBook, Aaron noticed and wrote about the change, as evermore keyword data disappeared. The motivation to withold this data, according to Google, was privacy concerns: SSL encryption on the web has been growing by leaps and bounds. As part of our commitment to provide a more secure online experience, today we announced that SSL Search on https://www.google.com will become the default experience for signed in users on google.com”.   Measuring... [...]

Aaron Wall says, “Google recently announced they were doing away with exact match AdWords ad targeting this September. They will force all match types to have close variant keyword matching enabled. This means you get misspelled searches, plural versus singular overlap, and an undoing of your tight organization. In some cases the user intent is different between singular and plural versions of a keyword. A singular version search might be looking to buy a single widget, whereas a plural search might be a user wanting to compare different options in the marketplace”. Loah Qwality Add Werds... [...]

Aaron Wall says, “Whenever Google does a major algorithm update we all rush off to our data to see what changed in terms of rankings, search traffic, and then look for the trends to try to figure out what changed. The two people I chat most with during periods of big algorithmic changes are Joe Sinkwitz and Jim Boykin. I recently interviewed them about the Penguin algorithm. Topics include: what it is its impact why there hasn’t been an update in a while how to determine if issues are related to Penguin or something else”. Understanding The Google Penguin Algorithm ‘SEO Book’... [...]

Peterd says, “For those new to optimizing clients sites, or those seeking a refresher, we thought we’d put together a guide to step you through it, along with some selected deeper reading on each topic area. Every SEO has different ways of doing things, but we’ll cover the aspects that you’ll find common to most client projects. Few Rules The best rule I know about SEO is there are few absolutes in SEO. Google is a black box, so complete data sets will never be available to you. Therefore, it can be difficult to pin down cause and effect, so there will always be a lot of experimentation... [...]

Wall says, “A couple years ago we published an article named Branding & the Cycle, which highlighted how brands would realign with the algorithmic boost they gained from Panda & leverage their increased level of trust to increase their profit margins by leveraging algorithmic journalism. Narrative Science has been a big player in the algorithmic journalism game for years. But they are not the only player in the market. Recently the Associated Press (AP) announced they will use algorithms to write articles based on quarterly earnings reports, working with a company named Automated... [...]

The latest ‘Entrepreneurs-Journey’ blog post is titled “Outsourcing And Automating Your Email And Customer Service Process”. Yaro says, “In this Christmas flavoured Everything Entrepreneurship #11 episode, Walter and I head into a long discussion about email and how you can bestoutsource and automate this very important part of your online business. During the episode I mentioned an article from the archives of EJ where I covered how I came up with my email management system, which you can read here – Inside My Business: The Evolution Of A Customer Service... [...]

The latest ‘Entrepreneurs-Journey’ blog post is titled “The Quickest Path To Your Own Money Making Blog”. Yaro says, “For the last month I have been in focus mode, preparing a new product for release – my How To Buy And Sell Blogs And Websites E-Guide. The goal was to release my latest e-guide before November ends. I am pleased to say everything is on track – it launches officially next week – although you can sneak in”. The Quickest Path To Your Own Money Making Blog   Yaro Starak’s ‘Entrepreneurs-Journey’ Blog  [...]