Tim Wailes says, “In my day-to-day role at Builtvisible, I build tools to break down marketing challenges and simplify tasks. One of the things we as marketers often need to do is pitch content concepts to sites. To make this easier, you want to pitch something on-topic. To do that more effectively, I decided to spend some time creating a process to help in the ideation stage. In the spirit of sharing, I thought I’d show you how that process was created and share it with you all. Tell me what you write The first challenge is making sure that your content will be on-topic. The starting... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Bing Ads has updated the campaign creation workflow; it’s now designed to make it easier for advertisers to get campaigns set up and activated. Throughout the process, more options are available so you won’t have to go back and remember to update settings and options after a campaign is created. Performance estimates are also built in along the way to help inform your settings from the outset. The new setup starts with the option of selecting a campaign goal or importing campaigns from Google, importing from a file or researching keywords. If you select a campaign... [...]

Todd Saunders says, ““OK Google, tell me how creepy things are going to get.” How would your 2006 selves respond to our advertising toolbox of today? You can target ads to people based on their income level who are also currently at the airportwith advanced geotargeting! You can follow your potential customers around with the very products they looked at but decided not to buy with dynamic remarketing. You can trigger ads to people based on what they say inside their emails with Gmail Ads. Much of what we internet users and advertisers deem as normal would have been considered creepy or... [...]

MOZ team says, “Have you ever considered gating your content to get leads? Whether you choose to have open-access content or gate it to gather information, there are benefits and drawbacks you should be aware of. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand weighs the pros and cons of each approach and shares some tips for improving your process, regardless of whichever route you go”. Content Gating: When, Whether, and How to Put Your Content Behind an Email/Form Capture MOZ  [...]

Sherry Bonelli says, “Getting a local business to rank high on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) used to be as easy as having a website, getting listed on some online business directories/citation sites and claiming your Google My Business page. Once you did those few simple things, you had an incredible shot at ranking high on Google for local keywords like “plumbers in Austin.” But those days are long gone. Local SEO is much more competitive These days local SEO is more and more competitive. Why? Part of the reason is that many local businesses have finally realized the... [...]

Stoney deGeyter says, “Ever since Google rolled out Hummingbird in 2013, there has been some question about the value of keyword research. Moving from a keyword-focused process to a topic-focused process has led some to devalue the long, arduous process of keyword research. Many wonder if it’s even worth the time. After all, if Google no longer looks at keywords (Hummingbird), and people no longer search with keywords (voice search), we don’t need to research keywords, right? Wrong! As with most predictions of the death of anything related to web marketing — how’s that fork in guest... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “Audience enrichment — combining first-party data from your website with third-party data gathered from other sources to get a more complete picture of your visitors — is a hot topic right now amongst enterprise-level businesses. Evidence of its impact is clear in channels such as programmatic, which continues to rampage through paid marketing budgets, hoovering up the dollars left and right. Being UK-based, the above overview from eMarketer struck a chord on that progress to channel dominance for programmatic within paid channels. But you can also take a look at... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “With Thanksgiving just around the corner, many online retailers are preparing for one of the biggest days of the year – Black Friday. However, with increasing backlash over the ‘Black Friday creep’ – is it still all it’s cracked up to be? Here’s a closer look at the opportunity it presents, as well as how retailers can best capture consumer interest through organic search. What happened last year? Despite murmurings that consumers are becoming fed up of Black Friday madness – and some retailers like Rei even taking a stance against it – last year’s... [...]

Ryan Shelley says, “The only constant in the world of SEO is change. In fact, Google is reported to change its search algorithm around 500 to 600 times each year.  While most of these updates are small and often aren’t even picked up by users and SEO, every once in a while, Google releases major updates. Over the past two years alone, we’ve seen about nine major updates to the algorithm. The two most recent, “Possum” (released on September 1, 2016) and Penguin 4.0 (released on September 23, 2016) caused a lot of stir in the SEO community. Over my years in the SEO community,... [...]

Matt Vazquez says, “I stood up from my office chair, stepped behind it and leaned on its back with both hands so I could stare at the email from a new angle. I was silenced by the response of the blogger: “We’ve had a recent policy change here, and we no longer offer followed links. It’s hurting our reputation and being flagged by Google.” In that moment, the game changed for me. I’ve received some interesting responses from editors and bloggers about links before, but never as adamant and uninformed as this. I realized that I needed to develop a communication strategy for my... [...]