Eric Samson says, “In our current marketing climate, where “content is king,” many once successful SEO practices have become irrelevant or damaging to one’s site in light of improvements to Google’s ranking algorithm. Once upon a time you could simply stuff a keyword in the title, subheaders, alt tags, slug, meta-description, and body of an article, and you’d land your content on the first page of Google. This type of SEO (keyword stuffing) hasn’t been in play for close to a decade, but many SEO tricks are still functional today – although it seems like a new article comes... [...]

George Beall says, “While Gen Z has recently been the subject of conversation for many companies, Millennials are still the most influential consumer group in the world. Marketers around the globe have poured a huge amount of money and attention into this space, hoping to capture this valuable, yet mysterious audience. As a result, “Millennial marketing” has become quite a crowded industry. Millennials, on average, see more than 3,000 advertisements a day. Through the noise, it has become increasingly challenging to differentiate your message and connect with valuable customers. The... [...]

David Trounce says, “Most small business relies on organic search and pay-per-click advertising. Under pressure, it is tempting to throw your money at the shady expertise of an SEO service or toward a poorly run pay-per-click campaign, just to get something happening. However, while the online competition may have increased, the reality is that the playing field is still fairly even. With patience, a small start-up that is willing to take the long view can still build their brand, rank well in Google and see growth in sales. One of the levelers for any business, no matter how big or small,... [...]

Alex Wolk says, “For everybody, the holiday season is a time to come together and celebrate the close of another year. But for e-commerce businesses, the holidays are a time to really give business a boost. Follow these tips below to make sure that the stressful season doesn’t get the best of you. 1. Do something to stand out. Every e-commerce site is working hard to up their game over the next couple of months, so you can’t just sit on your hands. Find a way that you can be different from the crowd, whether that’s by offering cool content (which we’ll take about later), incredible... [...]

Wesley Cherisien says, “In this digital world of websites, social media, video blogs, etc., the importance of good content cannot be undermined. Companies that do not give priority to content creation, will, and often do, fail in achieving their marketing goals.Long gone are the days when companies could simply launch a product or service through a press release and some print advertisements. Today, organizations use a variety of digital promotional strategies including social media marketing activities, blogs, video and photos to build an online presence. Since they now rely more than... [...]

Nicholas Brown says, “Just when marketers and small businesses have finally figured out what millennials want, here comes the most self-reliant and technologically proficient generation in history: Generation Z. Generation Z is loosely defined as people born after 1997. Most of them are currently in high school and college, but in only a few years Generation Z will make up a full one-fifth of the workforce. Their upbringing was shaped by the Great Recession, low unemployment rates, attentive parenting, and most of all near lifelong access to the Internet and tablet and smartphone technology.... [...]

Rich Drees says, “With so many online sharing platforms available today and the rising costs of producing great content, it is essential to track your traffic to see which methods are getting the most results for your campaign. Tracking this gives you data to make informed decisions about which channels to focus your marketing efforts on, based on traffic and user engagement. For brands and business that use YouTube’s open platform, getting enough traction for your video marketing efforts can now be done through the use of UTM parameters. What are UTM parameters? UTM (Urchin Traffic Monitors)... [...]

Andrew Lovasz says, “Google has made yet another algorithm change with its Penguin 4.0 update. While it’s one of the thousands of changes it conducts each year, this one outweighs any of the other, more minor updates. Businesses can leverage Penguin 4.0 in their favor, however, as long as they understand the subtleties the new update entails. Google Penguin’s wobbly path In April 2012, Google cracked down on websites benefitting from links from contrived or “unnatural” outside websites. In perhaps the first ever move by a business to leverage the intelligence of the “crowd,”... [...]

Samantha Anderson says, “When backed by a strong strategy, B2B online marketing can offer tremendous value to a company. To be effective, it’s important to choose the best approach based on your specific goals. Without a well-informed decision, you risk wasting valuable resources, money and brand equity. It’s essential to have a clear understanding of the impact each approach can have on your bottom line compared to its expense. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective B2B online marketing strategies and how they can affect your business. Inbound marketing Most... [...]

Jesse Boskoff says, “When using local search engine optimization, a company should add localized keywords to a website’s posts, create responsive webpages that are compatible with mobile devices, post listings on Google Places, position backlinks on websites that are associated with a company’s geographic region and develop citations that feature incoming links. Typically, local SEO is able to improve a webpage’s conversion rates, increase traffic, boost the amount of customers who post reviews about a business and augment the number of visitors who follow the company’s... [...]