Andrew Goodman says, “At our company’s informal book club, we recently had a nice discussion of David Hand’s The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. Belief in causation where there is only correlation, faulty assumptions about how “randomness” works and similar errors are shockingly common, even among the educated. Superstition can be a nightmare for the marketing practitioner, who can be praised or blamed for factors that fall outside of her control. Better measurement helps, of course — but so does understanding how different... [...]

Brian Hughes says, “Real Estate Mogul and Billionaire, Donald Trump says, “the image of success is important, but even more important is the ability to focus on solutions instead of on problems. That way, you’ll never be thinking like a loser, and you probably won’t look like one either.” In the competitive world of residential real estate sales, a brilliant SEO and social media strategy are critical to securing leads. Nine out of ten buyers use the Internet to search for homes, according to the Digital House Hunt, a 2014 report on real estate consumer trends from the National... [...]

Eric Enge says, “The past 20 years have seen the fastest rate of change in human history. Breathtaking as that may have been, the reality is, that was just the beginning. In fact, the pace of change is going to continue to accelerate. Because of these changes, I see the need for brands to evolve into what I am calling a10x brand. This is an expansion of the concept of 10x Content that Rand Fishkin discussed in a recent Whiteboard Friday video. During this WBF, Rand showed why brands now need to produce content ten times better than anything else showing up in search. In this post, I’m... [...]

Ben Davis says, “It’s as traditional (and as enjoyable) as Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine. Yes, we’re getting in there early with our annual trends roundups, beginning with SEO. We’ll be featuring annual digests from many other digital channels over the coming weeks, as well as looking forward to 2016 with a few sage predictions. So, what was most noteworthy about SEO in 2015? Google’s Quality Rater guidelines  Andrew Girdwood, media innovations director, Digitas LBi There was no shortage of talking points for SEO in 2015; a reminder that this is a discipline... [...]

Ian Watson says, “Some say the only constant thing in this world is change — and that seems to go double for the online marketing and SEO industry. At times this can seem daunting and sometimes insurmountable, but some have found ways to embrace the ambiguity and even thrive on it. Their paths and techniques may all differ slightly, but a commonality exists among them. That commonality is the utilization of data, mainly via API-driven custom tools and dashboards. APIs like Salesforce’s Chatter, Facebook’s Graph, and our very own Mozscape all allow for massive amounts of useful data... [...]

Russ Jones says, “Google Keyword Planner data at one point or another, especially while doing keyword research, the reality is that the data is often untrustworthy and should be viewed with great skepticism. Whether you plan to use it to help build a paid search campaign or determine which content to write, there are huge caveats to the numbers presented as Average Search Volume. Today, I want to walk through a number of the “gotchas” in Google Keyword Planner data so you can do better keyword research and make smarter decisions for you or your clients’ sites. Dirty secret... [...]

Aleh Barysevich says, “Get ready for a new year of changes to Google’s algorithms—and your SEO strategy. The following five trends, distilled from a guide published on the Link-Assistant.com blog, will undoubtedly be buzzed about next year. 1. Dark Traffic It’s not news that an immense amount of traffic is flowing to websites from social media and messaging apps. But, thanks to a quirk of Google analytics, you can’t necessarily tell that’s the case. When Google Analytics can’t tell the source of a website visitor, that visit is recorded as direct traffic, even... [...]

John Fetto says, “According to our research, 99.8 percent of online Americans say that the Internet is the first place they look for information on one or more topics. As a result, our web browsers and search engines know us better than just about anyone. They know our aspirations, desires, fears, wants and needs. Given this fundamental shift in information seeking, search has become one of the post powerful, and yet untapped, sources of consumer insights. Watch this short video to explore five ways that marketers today can generate more accurate, more insightful and more actionable consumer... [...]

Craig Bradford says, “Well-researched personas can be a useful tool for marketers, but to do it correctly takes time. But what if you don’t have extra time? Using a mix of Followerwonk, Twitter, and the AIchemy language API, it’s possible to do top-level persona research very quickly. I’ve built a Python script that can help you answer two important questions about your target audience: What are the most common domains that my audience visits and spend time on? (Where should I be trying to get mentions/links/PR) What topics are they interested in or reading on those sites? (What content... [...]

MOZ team says, “Where do you host your content? Is it on your own site, or on third-party platforms like Medium and LinkedIn? If you’re not yet thinking about the ramifications of using hosted blog platforms for your content versus your own site, now’s your chance to start. In this week’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explores the boons and pitfalls of using outside websites to distribute and share your content“. How to Use Hosted Blog Platforms for SEO & Content Distribution MOZ Blog  [...]