Greg Sterling says, “According to a new forecast from eMarketer, total media spending in the US will see its largest increase in a decade reaching $180.1 billion. The firm says that the growth will be lead by TV and mobile. Overall digital ad spending will represent almost 30 percent of all US ad spending this year according to eMarketer, which bases its forecasts on a wide range of third party data including other firms’ media spending forecasts. The eMarketer forecast predicts that mobile advertising will represent roughly 10 percent of all media ad spending. That would mean it would... [...]

John Tackett says, “I’m sure most of you have heard the old proverb: The road to ruin is paved with the best of intentions. In fact, if you have a different version of it, feel free to share it in the comments below. The proverb is a great example of the subtle dangers in optimizing a process with no perspective on how the big picture is potentially impacted by those changes. In this MarketingExperiments Blog post, I wanted to take a close look at a checkout process experiment and what we can all learn from this company when it comes to identifying the subtle dangers in optimization that often... [...]

Christopher Ratcliff says, “Before we begin to understand what ‘off-page SEO’ means and the various methods that relate to it, let’s have a quick recap at what ‘on-page SEO’ means. On-page SEO (or on-site SEO) refers to all the elements on your web page that you can control in order to make it visible to search engines. For instance: internal linking, using a clear navigation with a naturally flowing hierarchy, search engine friendly URLs that have relevancy to the content, fast loading pages, submitting regularly updated XML sitemaps or remembering to tag your images and videos... [...]

Sam Kusinitz says, “More than 1.1 billion people use Google searcheach month to make 114 billion searches.According to comScore, Google holds 67.6% of the U.S. search engine market share. This means that marketers looking to rank highly in organic search have to worry a great deal about what Google is looking for. With all the talk about optimizing content for search engines, you’d think we’d know by now exactly what Google’s ranking algorithm considers when crawling pages on the internet. But we don’t, and we can’t — mainly because Google has never... [...]

Yuriy Timen says, “Marketing for any business is an ongoing effort that requires consistent refinement and improvement to see positive results in the long-term. It is not enough to simply create a quality marketing program and leave it alone to do its job. Rather, the marketing plan for any business needs to be monitored on a daily basis in order to make sure maximum returns are achieved. Testing, Testing Thanks to A/B testing, or split testing, it has never been easier to refine marketing programs. Businesses that aren’t using testing as a major part of their marketing plan are missing... [...]

Sam Kusinitz says, “Landing pages exist to serve one purpose: to get people on your website to convert to the next stage in the buying journey. Although their purpose is simple enough in theory, actually creating a successful landing page requires detailed planning and creative testing. Regardless of what your business is selling or the conversion action you hope to instigate, it’s helpful to get inspired by seeing what other great landing pages look like. And because there’s no one “right” way of doing a landing page, you need to check out examples from lots of... [...]

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... [...]

Dario Zadro says, “It’s been said that all politics are local, and much the same can be said about commerce. The World Wide Web has given even the smallest business owner access to the global marketplace, but brick and mortar enterprises still heavily depend on local search traffic to survive. This is not to say that the internet cannot be a valuable tool for local businesses. It most definitely is! But as a tool it must be pressed into service to drive real world traffic into local shops and offices“. Local Rankings Slipping? SEO Troubleshooting Tips for Local Businesses Business2Community.com  [...]

Bryson Meuniers says, “It occurred to me as I was making my personal site responsive and adding recommended resources that I’ve been doing this column for over five years and have yet to share with you readers a comprehensive list of the mobile SEO resources I recommend. This month, I’d like to right that wrong by citing the people, publications and tools that I find essential for mobile SEO, all in one place”. Essential Mobile SEO Resources Marketing Land  [...]

Sam Kusinitz says, “Landing pages exist to serve one purpose: to get people on your website to convert to the next stage in the buying journey. Although their purpose is simple enough in theory, actually creating a successful landing page requires detailed planning and creative testing. Regardless of what your business is selling or the conversion action you hope to instigate, it’s helpful to get inspired by seeing what other great landing pages look like. And because there’s no one “right” way of doing a landing page, you need to check out examples from lots of... [...]