Insurance Marketing Done Right: How to Increase Traffic to Your Site

Before you can convert any leads, you have to get traffic to your site. Here are some insurance marketing tips that will help you do just that.

Struggling to ensure your traffic flow as an insurance business?

Just over 70% of small businesses handle their own marketing. If you're an insurance company looking to increase your traffic, you may have already discovered that doing your own marketing can be an uphill battle.

Don't panic just yet. Below, we're taking a look at insurance marketing done right.

Create A Blog

It seems everyone has a blog, these days, but that only proves how valuable they are.

A blog is a fantastic chance to provide value for visitors to your site. It allows your site to become something more than a fancy business card.

But creating a blog isn't just about giving your customers something to read. Used right, a blog can establish authority. Customers want an insurer who knows the game.

Use your blog to show off your insurance knowledge in a way that speaks to your customers. That way, you're providing a valuable resource that proves your credibility.

Audit Your SEO

Your site's SEO is the scraps of information a search engine will read to figure out where you should sit in the rankings.

SEO is a deep topic, but even breaking through the surface of SEO can improve your traffic flow. Start by looking into your site's keywords, backlinks, and quality of content.

For only a small amount of additional work, you can secure a higher place in the rankings, which will help potential customers find you.

Break Down the Trust Barrier

Let's face it, customers seek out insurance companies out of necessity, not for the joy they bring.

Many potential customers don't trust insurance companies thanks to prior experiences or bad business practices. Insurance companies face an uphill struggle to reestablish trust.

That's why establishing a trustworthy voice is so powerful in insurance marketing. Tailor your brand to provide comfort and assurance, so that your customers know they're dealing with a company that cares.

Your blog is one great way to do this. So is providing helpful video content and other resources your potential customers can use. The more support you offer, the more trust you can build.

Social Media

It's so obvious at this point that it's almost trite, but you need social media if you want to get your company noticed.

There's too much noise on the internet to keep you from climbing to the top. Your competitors in the insurance market will use social media, which means you have to, as well. Otherwise, you'll be the one making less noise.

It's not always easy to "win" at social media, but your presence alone can be enough to extend your reach. You can supplement that with social media campaign ideas like Q&As, helpful videos, and general advice to attract visitors to your site.

Insurance Marketing Done Right

With these simple tips, you can get your insurance marketing on point and drive up traffic to your site. That could be the first step toward greater business success.

Need help getting your insurance site in order? You can sign up for our services here.

Are your website's forms being targeted by spammers? 

I've got great news for you! Watch this short tutorial on how to drastically reduce SPAM from your website's forms.

Why Online Reviews are Essential for Insurance Agents (and How to Get More)

In our new digital world, the research is clear, online reviews have become essential for today's insurance agent. More and more clients begin their search for insurance products online. In a hyper-competitive market, even those who are referred by current customers are likely to check out your online reputation before even committing to a conversation.

What do consumers see when they look for you online? Are they viewing multiple, current, five-star reviews with helpful comments? If not, keep reading.

How To Identify Phishing Emails, Scam Emails, & Legitimate Email Links

I will preface this post with the fact that I get about ten to twenty phone calls and/or emails each and every week from my clients about this topic alone. Personally, I am grateful for their trust and I deeply appreciate the opportunity to help them.

This post is intended to provide an additional resource on how to identify phishing emails, scam emails, and legitimate email links, not a replacement for contacting me for questions that you have! 😉

On this week’s Relationship Marketing Weekly, Relationship Marketing Expert Kody Bateman interviews Insurance professional Bret Weston!  Bret explains how he created a 90% referral based business and maintain a 95% retention over the past five years. It’s an amazing story that I know you’ll enjoy!

Insurance and financial service professional Mike Smith’s retention/persistency rate is 20% higher than the national average. 80% of his book of business has come from referrals. 100% of his Medicare business and 90% of his annuities business has come from, you guessed it, referrals. How does he do it? His answer will absolutely amaze you…

It's perhaps maybe not that long ago that using an insurance web site was considered to be a cost of doing business, however, perhaps not fundamentally a means to create leads.

Today though, with the new generation of consumers and even a huge block of "traditional" consumers who consider themselves to be "with the times" in terms of doing business online, you must have an active, current, web presence that doesn't just sit there, it must add value. Brochure websites are really a thing of the past.

Too often business is all about doing what your head tells you to do rather than your heart. Leaders are ideally positioned to put humanity, compassion, and purpose back into the workplace, so why not use that power?

By putting people first, and by tapping into employees’ unlimited wells of creativity, initiative, and productivity, the psychic and the financial rewards to your company and the people who work within it will be truly remarkable. Here’s how.

1. CONNECT WORK TO A MISSION
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. The heart-centered leader is a master of divining an organization’s mission and then developing a vision for what paths the organization should take to achieve it. Everyone’s work is positioned as part of a larger, big-story purpose. As Xerox PARC guru John Seely Brown put it, “The job of leadership today is not just to make money. It’s to make meaning.”

2. SPEAKING OF CONNECT. . . CONNECT!
Business is built on a foundation of strong relationships both inside and outside the organization. This makes two-way communication and true dialogue with your people critically important. The best leaders encourage an open flow of ideas throughout the organization and break down the walls that separate employees from one another.

3. LEAVE NO EMPLOYEE BEHIND
None of us is as smart as all of us. Every employee is a source of unlimited ideas on how to improve his or her organization’s products, work processes, and systems. Most employees simply need to be invited to participate and then positively reinforced when they do. However, employee participation only works in an environment of complete and unconditional trust.

4. DON’T JUST TOLERATE WORK-LIFE BALANCE, INSIST ON IT
In the past, companies demanded–and got–the best part of their employees’ lives. Today, the people who run the most successful companies have learned that helping workers balance their lives on the job and off results in a healthy environment with less stress, much higher productivity, and much lower employee turnover. That is a sure recipe for a better bottom line.

5. SHARE THE WEALTH
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich provides two compelling reasons that organizations should share financial success with their employees: First, if you want to attract and keep talent, you have to pay for it. Second, if you want that talent to work with the enthusiasm that comes from ownership, you have to trade equity for it. By sharing the wealth with your people (through competitive pay, performance bonuses, stock options, and the like), you create extremely powerful organizational glue.

6. HAVE MORE FUN
Employees who have fun at work are happy employees, and happy employees are more productive employees. Not only that, but research shows that fun restores immunity, elevates endorphins, and reduces diseases and work absences. There’s simply no reason to have unhappy employees in your organization. Can’t think of anything fun to do? Consider afternoon bowling outings, baseball games, cookouts, goofy hats, impromptu karaoke contests, and mock casinos for a start. Or just ask your employees.

7. BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF ONE
When you lead with your heart, others are sure to be touched, both inside and outside the organization. Putting people first is the key to unleashing the full power and creativity of employee teams, superior customer service, strengthened client relations, and closer and more productive relationships with vendors and suppliers. One person can make all the difference in the world, and there’s every reason for that person to be you.

To secure your best year yet, you may consider using a service like this one. In just minutes, you can create a custom card, add a personal message and picture, and do it all right from your mobile device!  You can even include one of their many gift selections like their amazing brownies, their new premium line of chocolates, you can even include a Starbucks card!

If you would like to learn more about how to incorporate a Relationship Marketing Strategy in your business, feel free to call or text me (Andrea Shepherd) at 424-442-0143.  I will answer all your questions and help you build relationships, increase referrals, and make an amazing impression on all your clients, friends and family!

Source: Inc.com

• Google brings AI-powered ad suggestions to AdWords campaigns. The new campaigns will get optimization suggestion from Google’s AI.  
• Google is testing phrase free AdWords Campaign. 
• Automated PPC bidding is not ideal in all the situations. Here’s a comprehensive article that explains in great detail that when you should not use automated bidding. 
• Google has recently launched a new tool “reach planner” that helps you spend your marketing budget wisely. 
• Don’t want Google to run ads automatically? Here’s how you can opt out of AdWords Ad suggestions.
• Bing has recently launched 4 new features within their Bing shopping campaigns interface. 
• The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is new privacy regulations that are going into place officially on May 25th, 2018. IN response to this rule, Google is making big changes, especially within Youtube Ads. Find out. 
• Bing Ads has launched New Price extensions. According to bing, this will help advertisers show the right product at the right time. 
• Google has launched TrueView that helps advertisers to promote their products/service more effectively. The bumper ads which are 6 seconds long are the first to be introduced.
   

Google is struggling hard to keep the reviews trustworthy. They are trying to weed out fake reviews and bring genuine reviews, but they have a long journey ahead.

As reported in Google My Business forums, recently, a Kentucky law firm allegedly ran a contest on Facebook, offering people zoo tickets in exchange for positive reviews. 

This didn’t go down well with other law firms and businesses and they reported the incident to Google. As a result, Google updated their reviews guideline from: 

“Don't offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor.”

to this:

“In addition to Prohibited Content guidelines, text reviews are subject to the following additional requirements:
•    Don't use reviews for advertising purposes. This includes, but is not limited to, posting email addresses, phone numbers, social media links or links to other websites in your reviews.
•    Don't include promotional or commercial content.
•    Don't offer or accept money in exchange for reviews.
•    Don't solicit reviews from customers in bulk.”

Reviews are important and it is almost as effective as a personal recommendation, but be careful how you collect it.

To help you get more reviews for your business, we highly recommend our review widget. It’s a small piece of code which is placed on your website and helps you get positive reviews on Google, Yelp and Facebook. In addition, it helps to filter out negative reviews too thus ensuring positive experience to website users. Need more details? Please connect with us.
 

Google has announced new features to the Google My Business API, a brand new GMB agency dashboard & also launched a partner program. 

Google My Business API Version 4.1 Features

• Customer Provided Media: You can now retrieve and view insights for user generated photos and video for locations you own & manage.
• Admin Management APIs: You can now list, accept, & decline account and location related invitations for your account.
• Merchant Provided Description: Describe your business in your own voice and share with users the unique story of your business & offerings.
• Opening Date: Provide the date that your location opened for business.
• Offer Type Posts: A new type of Post on Google, helping users find deals available at your locations.

Agency Dashboard
The new agency dashboard is designed for those who manage multiple businesses and gives these folks:

• Single Organization Accounts on Google My Business to manage all locations and no longer limited to 100 locations.
• User Groups to manage internal teams and control access to locations.
• Improved search functionality enabling users to efficiently search for locations within an account and across location groups.
• Easier workflows to send and receive invitations to manage listings.

Partner Program
Trusted partners will be eligible for early access to new Google My Business features, a partner manager, and the potential to be featured on the Google My Business website. You can sign up for notification of this program here.
 

Pinterest has redesigned profile pages for user and brands, with a cover image from a collage of users latest pins. Its a good opportunity for brands to can take advantage of this update and display their best products campaigns, and most pinned items right up front on your profile page.

Once the new profile design is up, your most recent pins will automatically be featured in the cover image. Here are steps on how to get your best pins at the top of your profile.
Pinterest offers three different options for choosing specific pins that you want to feature in your cover image.

1. Latest Pins – If you choose this option, it will feature the last 24 pins you’ve saved on any board across your Pinterest profile.

2. Recent Activity – Choosing this option will display pins that other users have saved from your site and other accounts you have associated with your Pinterest account.

3. Pick a Board – This option will display all the pins you have on a specific board. Use this option along with Featured Boards and this board should have only that pins, which you wish to be featured as your cover image.

If you choose the option to have a certain board or latest pins featured, Pinterest also creates a tab in the upper right corner to send users directly to that area.

Lately, Pinterest has been striving hard to spruce up its platform and make it more brand-friendly and at the same time helping consumer finding what they are looking for. The new profile design is just another effort of providing a fresher experience on the platform. 

Google has started rolling out the mobile first index. Google has already moved a limited number of sites to mobile first indexing, but this time it’s on a much larger scale. Apart from sending messages on the search console, they are sending emails to the site owners informing them about the shift.

Here’s how the Email looks: 

Mobile-first indexing enabled for "your domain name"

To owner of "your domain name" 

This means that you may see more traffic in your logs from Googlebot Smartphone. You may also see that snippets in Google Search results are now generated from the mobile version of your content.

Background: Mobile-first indexing means that Googlebot will now use the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking, to better help our (primarily mobile) users find what they’re looking for. Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking systems have historically used the desktop version of your site’s content, which can cause issues for mobile searchers when the desktop version differs from the mobile version. Our analysis indicates that the mobile and desktop versions of your site are comparable.
 

The real take away with this is that you'll be able to quickly know if your site has been moved or not. No more checking logs or guess work.
 

A recent study shows that more review stars translate into higher paid search conversation rates. Businesses with an average of 3.31 stars managed to get 10.42 percent conversion rate, whereas, businesses that had 4.5+ stars achieved a remarkable 12.83 percent conversion rate.

The study also revealed that the response rate also affected the paid search performance. Business with highest response rate saw an average conversion rate of 13.86 percent. While the those with the lowest response rate had to settle down for 10.42. 

Engaging with customers & responding to their reviews is directly related to improved conversion rate as it builds trust among other users. 

So reviews not only help you improve the local search rankings, but also paid search ranking, and conversion rates as well.

So if you are not focusing n reviews, now is the time to do so.

To help you get more reviews for your business, we highly recommend our review widget. It’s a small piece of code which is placed on your website and helps you get positive reviews on Google, Yelp and Facebook. In addition, it helps to filter out negative reviews too thus ensuring positive experience to website users. Need more details? Please connect with us.
 

Anyone Can Become Knowledgeable About Reputation Management With These Easy Tips

When you are good at managing your business' reputation, you'll find your business does well. Lots of folks fail to fully understand how to manage their own reputation. Luckily, these tips can help you with your future business prospects.

You can now add description of your business directly within the Google My Business. It’s not a new feature though. Google removed this feature back in 2016 when they dropped the Google+ support. And now made it available again. This feature offers a hassle free way to keep the information about your business updated and ultimately help the searchers.

Here’s how you can add business description:

1. Login to Google My Business.
2. Click on the info button on the menu bar.
3. Click on the add business description
4. Click on the pencil icon and add info.

The character limit is 750, out of which only 250 characters will be visible in the knowledge panel. So make it crisp and engaging. You can use the copy from your best-performing AdWords ad as inspiration.

Vero, the new social media app is luring social media users.

What Is Vero?

Vero is a new entertaining app for the social media lovers who are fed-up from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and looking for something new. It has gained a lot of popularity and is nearing, three million registered users. The app allows the users to post and share movies, books, places, photos, links, etc. 

What’s Unique About Vero?

The unique thing about the app is, it has no ads & no algorithm. It shows you post in chronological order. Vero aims to provide its users with an uninterrupted experience by making it advertising free. People around the globe are loving this simple approach to social networking.
 
Who Should Try The App? 

You can try Vero, if you want to experience something new. Instagram, Facebook & Twitter use sophisticated algorithms to show you content, whereas, this app simply lets you view content in chronological order. 

Initially, Vero announced that the app is free only for the first one million users. But, due to enormous boost in popularity, they decided to extend the “Free Offer”. But eventually, the company wants to charge a subscription fee. The company says, “We made our business model subscription based, making our users our customers, not advertisers.”
 

There are many factors that influence a sites ranking on voice search results. To figure out which factor is most important, Backlinko conducted an extensive analysis.

Here are the findings: 

1. Page speed is crucial. Most of the results were from fast loading pages.
2. Domain authority is of absolute importance.
3. Content that ranks well on the desktop also ranks well on voice search. 
4. Surprisingly, Schema is not that important factor as only 36% of sites that ranked well on voice search results were using schema. 
5. 41% of Voice search results came from featured snippets. 
6. HTTPS is an absolute must.

This research debunked the myth that Schema is of absolute importance. And also made it clear that page speed is CRUCIAL. All the results that listed well on voice search were almost 2 times faster than traditional pages.

Google’s reliance on domains with high authority for providing voice search results comes from the tendency that they “may” provide higher accuracy as compared to domain’s with less authority. But it is possible that they will come up with a more sophisticated approach for the same in near future. 

The research also shed some light on the importance of long-form content. People speak more words that they type, so it's natural that pages that use comprehensive content will reign supreme in this area. 

However, you don’t have to specifically optimize your site’s content for voice search, writing in-depth content will suffice the need. 

On a side note, the virtual assistants are on the rise. So the marketers who are willing to offer their clients with latest digital marketing should take these platform seriously.
 

From past few years, Google is consistently pushing the website owners to improve their mobile site experience. They have launched multiple algorithms, guidelines, and tools for the same purpose. 

Recently, at Mobile World Congress, they launched two new tools, a new Mobile Scorecard and a Conversion Impact Calculator. 

The mobile scorecard provides data on the chrome user experience so that you can compare the speed of multiple websites on mobile devices.  

The mobile scorecard pulls data from chrome to compare the speed of multiple sites on mobile. That’s the same data that Google uses in the Page Speed Insights tool. 

Google said that a site should load within 5 seconds on 3g connections and 3 seconds on 4G connection.

The impact calculator gives a rough idea of how much revenue a business is losing because of slow page load speed. It might seem a bit exaggerated but still useful.

And if you are in need of mobile website design or redesign services, please don’t hesitate to connect with us.

Are You Seeking Information About Reputation Management? Then Check Out These Great Tips!

How important is your business to you? If your business is tantamount to your well being, you must make it as important for those you do business with. That means managing its reputation well. Read on for methods that can help you do that.

Follow through with your customers to keep your reputation good. This is especially the case if your business is larger. The customers need to feel important. Automated systems can be used for following up. Also, you can ask them to make feedback on the purchases they've made.

Be Proactive With Respect To Your Online Reputation

Being proactive helps you counteract negativity online regarding your brand. Ensure you have plenty of positive feedback since this can drown out the negative. Continue posting positive content until the negative ones slip into obscurity.

Have a good online personality. Posting status updates and tweets doesn't work without active communication between you and your followers. When someone takes the time to leave a message on one of your social media pages, it is important that your are quick to respond. If someone posts a question and you don't have the answer, tell them you don't know but you're working on getting the answer for them.

Try to make your unhappy customers... happy.

When you can turn a client's bad experience into something good, your customer will appreciate your show of care. Do this online, as well. You will show customers and prospective customers that you are willing to address any issue, which makes them more likely to do future business with you.

Private sales and promotions need to stay exactly that: private. This is important especially if it's for a complaint. You don't want those "freebies" getting around, because other people will want in on the deal, too.

Social Media

Keep an eye on social networks. Most customers will expect companies to answer questions on social media websites. Be sure you offer prompt responses for that reason. You can stand out from your competition since many businesses won't be quite as vigilant.

Monitoring Online Mentions 

Monitor your online presence. A displeased customer may talk about you online, and you can see this through a search engine result. Go over the search engine results to prevent anything negative about your business from making it to the top. You should generally do this a couple times each month.

Regularly perform Internet searches on your own company. If you find misleading information, work to get it taken off the Internet. If you show the site owner that what they are presenting is factually untrue and they are liable, most website owners will comply with your request.

Treat Your Employees Well

If you own your own business, be sure your employees are treated with respect. If this principle is disregarded, the fallout can be severe. If others know that you don't treat employees well, they may not want to do business with you.

You are now very aware of how important your reputation is to the success of your business. This means keeping your reputation pristine. Use this information to manage your business reputation and attract customers.

Google has rolled out the beta version of the new and improved search console and SEO’s are more than happy, to say the least. The most promising new feature is the access to 16-month-old historical data. It enables year over year comparison which is great from every aspect.

Google has built the new search console from the scratch and not all features are available yet. They are still working on it, and they will keep on adding useful features from the old search console to the new. So as of now,  most of the tools you will click on will have a coming soon message.

However, you do have access to the performance tool which is easy to understand with filtering options like: By device, country, impressions, CTR and more.

The Index coverage report is the perfect blend of old index status & crawl reports errors. It enables you to see how well Google is indexing your site as well to identify and fix any issues.

The new search console will also help you validate newly fixed AMP URLs. The updated AMP status report will provide details into the specific Errors. 

As of now, the above-mentioned tools and features are the biggest highlights of the new search console. But it’s still in the beta mode and many tools and features are yet to come, so stay tuned. 
We will keep you updated on new features as and when they go live.

•    The Dynamic search ads allow you to target the entire website or domain name so that you can target a broad audience. However, Google has made some significant changes to it and the changes will go live soon. To know exactly how it will affect you, click.

•    Google allowed the advertiser to spend as much as twice the daily budget simply to get more money from their pocket. But how advertisers are responding to it and does it really changed anything within AdWords … find out.

•    Google and Facebook get biggest slice of advertising cake. A recent study revealed that 1/4 (61%) of the global advertising spend goes to Google and Facebook. However, the number may drop soon as people are starting to allocate their ad budget to different platforms. 

•    Google officially removed the Adwords Review extension and all the performance data will be deleted by Feb 2018.

•    Last year we saw shocking reports that YouTube ads were running alongside some inappropriate videos. It scared the advertiser because it would cause more harm than good. Addressing the issue, YouTube has now made it mandatory for the YouTubers to have at least 1000 subscribers and 4000h watch time if they want to monetize their content.

•    Re-marketing is one of the best marketing weapons in your arsenal. Here’s a great tutorial on how to utilize it to the fullest.

•    What is Doubleclick adoptive re-marketing and how does it work. Find out.

•    Manually selecting placements to run display ads may seem like a good option, but it is not the right solution to click frauds. Also, it makes you miss the flexibility of automated placements.

•    Re-marketing is good but only if done in a balanced manner. Many advertisers overdo it and as a result, annoy the users. Although Google can’t tell advertisers to stop targeting a particular user, they may give the power to the users to block re-marketing ads coming from a specific advertiser.
 

Google was testing a new video feature in early January that allowed business owners and customers to add videos, related to the business. Allyson Wright from Google My Business advertiser community announced that they have fully rolled out the video feature and now all the business owners can add videos to their listing. These videos will be visible on Google Maps and local search results.

Some important points to consider:

•    Videos up to 30 seconds in length are supported. 
•    Videos will appear in the overview tab of the GMB Dashboard. 
•    Customer uploaded videos can be found in the customer tab. 
•    Merchant uploaded videos can be found in the by owner tab. 
•    All videos can be viewed together in the videos tab. 
•    After upload it could take up to 24 hours for the videos to appear. 
•    Once live, they will display where local photos do. 

The process to add videos is same as photos. Go to your GMB dashboard, click photos on the left and instead of adding photos, add the link to the videos.
 

It’s 2018 and if your web page takes more than 10 seconds to load, then you are far behind! Nobody likes to wait for minutes just for your page to load — they will simply hit the back button. According to a study, 53% of the users will abandon the site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load! So it came as no surprise when Google announced that site speed will be a ranking factor within the mobile search results from July 2018. 

However, Google assured that only a small percentage of the sites will be affected by it since the majority of the site loads faster than 10 seconds. Also, there will be exceptions to websites which provide relevant and high-quality content to users. Those websites can still rank well in the search engine result pages because the intent of the search query is still a strong factor.

If you are not sure about your site’s speed, you can use the Google’s “Test My Site” tool. This tool uses a standard 3G connection to replicate what most people are using to surf the web using mobiles. It not only tells you about your site speed but also gives suggestions on how you can improve.
 

What About AMP?

Google's announcement stated that it "applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page”, which means AMP gets no special advantage except that by its very nature it will pass all of these speed standards with flying colors. However, that doesn't mean that you get an automatic pass if you're using AMP because you need to be sure that everything is set up properly. If you need any help with mobile optimization, we can assist. Just reach out to us and we will be able assist you further.

Google started rolling out Questions and Answers (Q&A) feature for local search in the
beginning of August. As with all the testing, it was initially available, exclusively for
Android users via the Google Maps App, but eventually, they made it available to
everyone searching from a mobile device using either Safari or Chrome browsers.

The main motto behind introducing the Q&A into local search is to get the most
updated and relevant data about businesses and places. Q&A has always been one of the
best sources to get fresh content. Amazon has already tested it and employing it the
way it should be.

Here’s what it looks like on mobile device.

However, the fear of spamming is real! The competitors, or even just a single angry employee can ruin the entire Q&A section. Also, if a business has the authority to edit it, then it’s going to be as genuine and real as the “testimonials and reviews” that they put on their own website.

Here's what Google says:

"To make sure “Questions & answers” contains the most accurate and useful local info possible, business owners can add frequently asked questions and answers as well. In addition, when you (a customer) ask a question about a place, we notify the business owner and other in-the-know users to see if they have knowledgeable answers to contribute. When your question is answered, we notify you too."

Let’s see how Google is going to tackle these issues. Meanwhile, you might want to start writing content for the Q&A section. Reason being, Google has just launched it and is hungry for content (data), they will hardly filter it out and will most likely accept just about anything you post. You can actually benefit from the desperation of Google and ignorance of your competitors. 

Remember, the early bird gets the worm!
 

You can now add videos to local listings in the Google Maps using any Android device. 

Google is rolling it out slowly, so you might or might not see it right away. This feature is not only good for the business owners but the users as well. Because pictures tell altogether different story while video remains close to reality. “Close” because of all those filters available for the videos.

Meanwhile, if you are a local guide and willing to earn some extra points, while helping the folks out here, start uploading videos of the business and local places. It is available only for local guides and Android users but can be seen and searched by any one. You can take a 10-second video from the Google Maps app or can upload a 30-second video.   

You can add videos:

•    From a place’s page
•    From “your contributions”
•    Via Google photos and Gallery app

How to upload a video you’ve already shot:

•    Search and select a place on Google Maps
•    Scroll down and tap “Add a photo”
•    Tap “Folder” and select a video. Only the first 30 seconds of a video can be added.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about sharing videos.
 

You can now add quick links to your local results, thanks to Google My Business’s latest update! They have recently announced that local business owners will now be able to add quick links to their local listings. Currently, it is visible only to select categories of business.

But those who will be able to enjoy it can add the quick links using their Google My Business account. It can prove to be a boon to those who directly serve the customers. From the limited categories that will be able to avail this new feature, the restaurant owners will reap the maximum benefits from it, since they can add direct links to online ordering menu, reviews and much more.

Google posted the news about it on their release notes page saying:

Add links to specific actions like online orders or reservations. Make it easier for customers to take action directly from your listing.

This new update is to make it easier for the users to take actions. By cutting short the process from Google —> Website —> Action to Google —> Action.

The help center article has been updated to explain the steps for businesses to take to add these URLs. Some of the actions include:

•    booking an appointment
•    placing an order
•    reserving a table
•    searching for items
•    viewing the menu

Here’s a screenshot

When it comes to ads, relevance plays a vital role. Google has provided many tools that help advertisers ensure that they are targeting the right people. They just have to evaluate the quality score & it’s components. Recently Google has launched seven new quality score reporting columns. 

The biggest highlight is that advertisers will now be able to access the historical quality score data.  This data will be available via 4 new columns “Qual. Score (hist.),” “Landing page exper. (hist.),” “Ad relevance (hist.)” and “Exp. CTR (hist.)

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Keep in mind that they only reflect the last known score for the selected date range.

Also, you can segment data by day and see how end of day quality score changed over time.

Also, the new columns will display breakouts for: 

• Expected Click-through Rate
• Ad Relevance
• Landing Page Experience

When it comes to traveling, pre-planning can make all the difference. Most important of them all is booking a good hotel. It really takes a lot of efforts to find a good hotel within your budget. Google is planning to make it a bit easy. 

Google is planning to roll out a new Hotel Review Interface. The new interface provides more detailed information about the hotel including cartoon like graphics that will show how other guests have rated their specific amenities.  Also, there will be a collection of third party reviews to increase the credibility. Google will also provide an option to easily filter the hotels based on their reviews. 

Here's a screenshot of the new interface.

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Google has recently published a blog stating that those who are leveraging guest post as a link building technique should reconsider their strategy. They are specifically focusing on the spammy links, that are tagged as guest post, contributor post, partner post, etc.

Below is the list of things that you should avoid according to Google: 

• Stuffing keyword-rich links to your site in your articles.
• Having the articles published across many different sites; alternatively, having a large number of articles on a few large, different sites.
• Using or hiring article writers that aren’t knowledgeable about the topics they’re writing on.
• Using the same or similar content across these articles; alternatively, duplicating the full content of articles found on your own site (in which case use of rel=”canonical”, in addition to rel=”nofollow”, is advised).

As of now, Google has just warned those who are using these techniques, and they are not taking any actions. But as we all know, all the warnings are followed by a mass initiative to counter it. So in case you are employing these techniques, then you might want to reconsider it. Review all the posts, links and remove those who might cause problems in the near future.

How to future proof your websites

Link Diversification – Sites performing well in Google have good link diversity. Build backlinks / citations from diversified sources such as:

• Local and niche business search engines, directories and review sites
• Informational content sites
• Guest blogs
• Press releases
• Videos
• Infographics
• Coupons
• Image sharing sites
• Social profiles
• Q&A sites and more.

Since Google prefers a diversified link profile, we recommend getting links from these sources. 

Different Class C IPs – Having different Class C IP address for your backlink sources definitely helps with SEO rankings. 

Maximum Uptime - Since our network of sites are hosted with premium hosting plans, there are minimum chances of website downtime. Again, we are notified immediately of such instances which helps us get the sites back on track.

Different Domain Registration – Not only Class C IPs, having different registration details also helps. 

Different Registrant Details – Google itself being a Registrant, it has access to the Whois information of domains at a global level. 

Penalty Detection – All the sites within our network are included and verified in Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools). We constantly monitor all websites and make sure they are free from any Google Penalties. 

Fresh Content – Google loves fresh content. Since the content is updated on almost a daily basis, this ensures that the websites are indexed frequently and pages are latest pages are included in the Google database.

Google is big, like really big, like civilization level big! So when a company this big introduces something, even the most apathetic person gets excited. And this year at annual I/O, They introduced a lot of cool new things, but the one that got everyone’s attention was the “Google Lens”. 

Although there have been several unsuccessful attempts in the past to launch the same technology, this time it looks that the image recognition technology will finally be able to take off. Since the Google’s AI has become more sophisticated, it seems that now the Camera lens can be used in many more ways than just taking the selfies.

The main highlights of the Google Lens are: 

Business Details: Just point your mobile camera at store fronts and Google will provide you with knowledge graph and other vital details about that business. 

Connect WiFi: No need to manually enter the password, just click an image of the default username and password and your phone will automatically connect to the WiFi.

Image Recognition: Now you can get results based on what you are seeing. Just take a picture of the flower you want to know more about, and Google will provide you with all the details.

Exciting, isn’t it! Here’s the video.

Watch this crazy insurance lady!

She didn't advertise. She didn't do social media. She focused solely on RELATIONSHIPS and won! Big time.

Here is a transcript of what she has to say:

most recently i just sold insurance agency 0:05 and retired and I wanted to take a 0:07 minute or two to tell you about how we 0:10 utilize send out cards and the teachings 0:13 of cody Bateman in that insurance agency 0:16 and so what we did for the last six 0:19 years I've been a customer of send out 0:21 cards and we utilize that system in our 0:23 agency to send about 850 Birkett cards a 0:27 year we also had a referral program so 0:30 if someone refer business into our 0:32 agency we would acknowledge the referral 0:35 and send out i think you know with a 0:37 starbucks card and we did that right 0:38 from our send out parts website or we 0:41 can do it from our phone and so it made 0:44 it really easy to act on our promptings 0:46 to appreciate when people refer to us we 0:51 also taught our staff to basically 0:55 listen to the customer and by building 0:58 the relationship we were asking them 1:01 about what was going on in their life 1:02 and we listened about babies or 1:04 celebrations or we acknowledge people 1:07 and they got sick with cinema get-well 1:09 card or maybe if we heard someone had a 1:11 death in the family we would send a 1:13 sympathy card and so we just wanted them 1:16 to know that they matter to us as a 1:19 person we wanted to build that 1:21 relationship and that they mattered 1:23 beyond the insurance transaction and it 1:26 was our number one mode of marketing we 1:30 did not use email marketing we did not 1:32 use facebook we did not use twitter we 1:36 only use send out cards to touch our 1:38 customers and some of those customers 1:40 i've never met i had 1500 + customers so 1:42 them around the country I've never met 1:44 them but I could still effectively build 1:47 the relationship to send out cards i 1:51 didn't have to see them every day I had 1:52 this powerful tool that I could send 1:55 them something and let them know that I 1:57 cared you can definitely make a 2:00 difference and you can be unique in a 2:03 noisy world and send out cards is that 2:06 powerful tool so i hope this helped 2:09 and I hope you have a great day.

Here is how YOU can get signed up.

When you sign up - I will gift you about $500 in bonuses! What are they? When you sign up for a marketing bundle or business bundle I will create your first custom brand manager card back. I will put your logo and contact information together in a graphic and send it to you to upload to your custom brand manager.

I will also transfer a set of 12 custom cards to your account that you can customize with your information and photo/headshot and start using the system right away.

Sign up here

Download the app to your phone here!

Facebook has been quite impressive so far with launching new updates. Now, they have rolled out some new features to business pages yet again and perhaps, you have already started using them.

Your response time is central to the quality of your customer service
Your response means a lot to your customers. No one can deny the fact that customers have the right to know how responsive a page or business is on a prior note before they message. To help customers know when they have to expect a respond, Facebook has revealed their new feature showcasing response time on Fanpages.

Earlier, Facebook had set a high standard for the feature by adding the “Very responsive to messages” indicator only to Pages where 90% of messages were responded to within five minutes. Facebook has now taken the responsiveness of pages into a new level by segmenting them as “within minutes”, “within an hour”, “within hours” or “within a day”. The page Admin can keep it as auto or set any of the above time frames to show on their page.

Redesigned inbox tells businesses more about their customers to better serve them

This feature has already been rolled out globally. The new Page inbox not only have the stunning look but also have many improved qualities. It made easy for the Page admins to manage interactions with the Fans. While messaging a fan, the new inbox would display past interactions the user had with the page and more information about the user like DOB/City/Job will be displayed on the right side. Even Admins can add tags to categorize conversations.

A key metric for almost any business is conversions.

Many AdWords advertisers are already measuring their website conversions, using either AdWords Conversion Tracking or imported Google Analytics Ecommerce transactions.  Measuring actual conversions is ideal, because it allows you to optimize your bids, your ads and your website with a clear goal in mind.

However, hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses aren't measuring their website conversions today. Some businesses may not have a way for users to convert on their website and others may not have the time or the technical ability to implement conversion tracking.

The Google Analytics team is committed to helping such users use their data to drive better marketing and advertising performance.  So, for businesses that don’t measure conversions in AdWords today, Google has created an easy-to-use solution: Smart Goals. Smart Goals help you identify the highest-quality visits to your website and optimize for those visits in AdWords.

Activate Smart Goals in Google Analytics
To activate Smart Goals in Google Analytics, simply go to the Admin section of your Google Analytics account, click Goals (under the View heading) and select Smart Goals.  The highest-quality visits to your website will now be turned into Smart Goals automatically.  No additional tagging or customization is required.

Import Smart Goals into AdWords
Like any other goal in Google Analytics, Smart Goals can be imported into AdWords to be used as an AdWords conversion. Once you’ve defined a conversion in AdWords, you’re able to optimize for

Optimizing for Smart Goals in AdWords
One of the benefits of measuring conversions in your AdWords account is the ability to set a target cost per acquisition (CPA) as opposed to just setting a cost per click (CPC).  If you aren’t measuring actual conversions today, importing Smart Goals as conversions in AdWords allows you to set a target CPA.  In this way, you’re able to optimize your AdWords spend based on the likelihood of conversion as determined by the model.

Smart Goals will be rolling out over the next few weeks. To be eligible for Smart Goals, your Google Analytics property must be linked to your AdWords account. Note that your Google Analytics view must receive at least 1,000 clicks from AdWords over a 30-day period to ensure the validity of your data.

Yahoo search is going to add new features for mobile users & will also roll out a search algorithm update. Yahoo mobile users will witness the following changes this year. 

Integration of Twitter 
Celebrity searches will return with top tweets that are related to the celebrity. 

Brand new image search
You will experience a new way of discovering pictures of your favourite celebrities. Click on the photo of a celebrity and then you can explore trending content that is linked with that celebrity. 

Improved search experience
Latest news and happenings can be seen right on the search engine result page. Also, the search algorithms have been updated. So now you will see most recent and popular stories at the top of the news result thread. 

AMP compatibility
News in Yahoo search is now compatible with Accelerated Mobile Pages. So get ready to experience faster mobile browsing. 

It's good that Yahoo finally launched some updates, but we don’t understand why many of their updates are celebrity focused. Maybe their brilliant CEO has some mind blowing future plans, but as of now.... the updates are not interesting and useful. But still, it's very big and pleasing news for Yahoo mobile users (if there are any).

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2015 brought some of the biggest changes and updates in digital marketing. Be it the launch of mobile friendly algorithm, several Phantom Quality updates, 28th Panda Update in July, death of Google Plus, Google as a subsidiary of Alphabet or the RankBrain, 2015 was jaw dropping from every aspect.

As predicted, Mobile remained the focal area of Google in every facet. Not only has Google declared that a mobile optimized website is essential to rank higher, but it also launched AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) which took their mobile obsession one step further.

Overall we can say that 2016 is shaping up as a year of immense opportunity for website owners. But before we step into the future let’s have a look at what we got right & where we went wrong in 2015.

RECAP OF 2015

1.    Google and HTTPS
Google continues to push site owners to get HTTPS. They are not only displaying “Unsecured Connection Warning” in Chrome but also sending “Google Console Warnings”. Those warnings cover several practice error issues with SSL/TLS. Ignoring this will result into zero HTTPS boost for you.

2.    Facebook Modification 
Facebook worked tirelessly & as predicted they made a direct play for search, unleashed Atlas targeting to a great extent, expanded into Mobile Payments and upgraded their messaging functionality. All these changes resulted into an enormous boost, both in their overall usage numbers & stock price. So far, Facebook played really well & it seems like they are going to shine in 2016 too.

3.    Wearables Becoming Popular
Apple created a lot of Buzz when they launched Apple watch back in 2015. SEO & digital marketers' happiness was different from that of Apple enthusiasts. They were happy because now wearable gadgets are coming in fashion and it will unlock a whole new world of opportunities as they can provide us with real time data. However, the Apple watch wasn't a hit. But at-least they tried!

4.    SEO Code of Ethics
Everyone thought that the SEO code of ethics will formalize in 2014. Then we thought that it will arise in 2015. But it never happened. And that’s good, because it would have done more harm than good. If you'd like to know why? Click here.

5.    Mobile-Optimized Content
Site owners who were quick to react relished immense benefit by optimizing their website for mobiles. Google Mobile-Friendly Update also encouraged Mobile content, which was a win-win for everyone. 

6.    Google Algorithmic Updates
Google owned the stage by launching algorithmic updates back-to-back. They rolled out a brand new Panda update, Mobile-Friendly Update, Multiple Phantom quality updates and is about to launch a penguin update in upcoming days.

NOW LET'S LOOK AT WHAT DOES 2016 HAVE IN STORE

1.    Structured Data will become a Ranking Factor 
Structured data is going to play a big role in 2016. Google will also focus on Rich Snippets, Knowledge Panels & Featured Snippets. They are about to publish guidelines on “How to get Featured Snippets”. Basically, Google is trying to say that we haven’t made structured data a ranking signal yet, but we will do it eventually! So it's better that you get on-board already.

In case you are thinking what type of Structured Data will be good,  you can go with JSON-LD, as Google is really fond of it.

2.    2016 will bring more updates to Local Search
Google revamped Local Search to a great extent. The removal of Google plus from the equation, enabling users to easily set the city location, shrinking the local pack from 7 to 3 results & increased number of ads totally changed the local SEO.  But they are not done yet.

Google will continue to push home services ads & move SMBs to a pay-to-play model. Be ready to witness more of this kind of ads.

3.    Increased focus on User Experience
Providing a great user experience is Google's paramount goal and they are just trying to serve their goal by pushing Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), mobile-friendly content, HTTPS, and page speed. If you want to rank higher in 2016, take a mobile-first design approach.

4.    Improvement in the digital assistant space & wearables
2016 seems to be really good for digital assistant space. While Cortana & Siri are getting better & better, there's one player that will join the game and bring variety to it. And that is none other than Facebook's highly ambitious project “M”. Unlike Cortana & Siri it will be backed by both human/digital assistance making it unique among others.

Also, we can expect to see a lot of wearable gadgets in 2016. Thus, we recommend you should at-least be aware of wearable SEO, so when needed you can employ and reap the benefits of being aware and prepared.

Beacons will become more popular overtime and they will make it easy for you to connect with your existing customers. Also, you can expect new players such as Yext & their Xone beacons to enlarge nationally, as a medium to track offline customers online & then target them with re-marketing ads.

5.    Virtual Reality Monetization
Samsung gear VR was one of the top Christmas items of 2015. It comes at a minimal price of $99, thus making it affordable to masses. Also since we all know that Facebook acquired Oculus Rift, we can expect to see more advancements in the VR space.

It is estimated that the VR revenues will go up to 1 billion dollars in the coming year and will escalate to 4.4 billion dollars by 2019. So the company which will provide the best VR gear will reign supreme and will get to have the biggest piece of the 1 billion dollar cake.

6.    The downfall of Yahoo
Yahoo is still going through hard times and it seems like they will have to sell their search units to someone else. However, they have made deals with Google and Bing, but they are not getting fruitful results and the company is still struggling to survive on various aspects.

Many investors are now losing patience and blaming Marissa Mayer for not having a clear vision. Many experts are predicting that Yahoo may sell their assets to AT&T while some are claiming that Google will be the best bet.

7.    Google will roll out major algorithms which will make site audit tougher
Google will roll out both Panda & Penguin updates in 2016. They can be rolled out at the same time and that will be a major issue for website owners who keep getting hit (negatively) by these algorithms.

Till 2015, it was a bit easy to identify the issues which got you penalized, but since Google's expectations from a website are growing, they are making more complex algorithms. So for SEOs it will be tough to identify the exact cause of penalty in 2016. If you are an SEO expert, it's better to understand how to correctly audit a site & surface all website issues.

Final Takeaway

Your actions, predictions, and preparations will decide whether this year will be great or worse for you. We recommend that you gather as much information as you can and closely monitor any updates thathave the potential to influence the digital marketing space. That way you can achieve your goals in 2016.

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The top 20 updates for local search in 2016

The mobile-friendly update began on April 21st. Fourteen days later, Google announced that more Google searches now take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries, including the US and Japan.

Google Adwords has adapted over the years to be more accommodating to mobile search, and to help advertisers measure cross device conversions.

This month, Google introduced several new products and innovations that allow you to “measure every moment that matters,” understand the full impact of your PPC campaigns and make better decisions for your business. Click here to read more. 

The impact of Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update, as measured by MozCast (a weather report showing turbulence in the Google algorithm—the hotter and stormier the weather, the more Google’s rankings changed) was, in the short-term, much smaller than expected. 

Though the impact of the mobile-friendly update may be less than apocalyptic, in a blog called “How Far Did the Sky Fall,” Dr. Peter Meyers, Moz Marketing Scientist, wrote: “Google’s push toward mobile-first design and their clear public stance on this issue strongly signal that mobile-friendly sites are going to have an advantage over time.” 

If your website is not mobile-friendly, we advise you to move very quickly in that direction! 

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Sharing a link on Facebook mobile isn’t easy. It’s a clumsy process that sends Facebook users to Google, a competitor for mobile advertising dollars. 

Now, Facebook is testing an “Add a Link” button that, according to this article, “gives users fewer reasons to leave the Facebook app, reduces the clicks needed to share content and diminishes the chances that the user will end up at Google. Instead of the four or five steps that might be required to find, copy and paste a link in a post, users can now add links with a single tap. Facebook is betting that the easier it is to share links, the more links a user will open and post and the more the social network will know about that user’s interests.” 

Facebook’s objectives: 1. Take traffic from Google and 2. Learn more about users’ interests, which will help advertisers better target their campaigns. 

Let us know if you’d like more information about advertising on Facebook or other social media platforms. 

Last month, we reported on the Google Mobile Friendly Algorithm Update that will begin this month. Many in the industry are calling this update “Mobilegeddon.” Sounds ominous! It is a fact that starting April 21st, Google will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. 

In a recent study, 44% of Fortune 500 web sites failed the mobile-friendly test and are at risk of being penalized in search results when that update rolls out on April 21st. 

You can do better than those Fortune 500 companies! Take steps now to make sure your website is mobile friendly. Click here for Google’s guide on Mobile-Friendly Websites. 

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Online preorders for Apple’s first smartwatch began on April 10th at 12:01 a.m. PT and sold out in under six hours. Nearly one million U.S. consumers preordered Apple Watch, though some of those buyers are attempting to cash in on the high demand and short supply—an eBay search for Apple Watch, as of this writing, returns over 1,600 results!

Users won’t be able to run a Google search on the tiny watch screen. But in the future...who knows? Click here for more details about the first generation Apple Watch. 

Every new social media platform that comes along...Instagram, Google+, Ello...you name it... is invariably the next big thing—the one that’s going to take down Facebook. Hasn’t happened yet!

A Pew Research Center survey, conducted in September 2014, found that: 

• Facebook remains by far the most popular social media site. While its growth has slowed, the level of user engagement with the platform has increased. 
• For the first time, more than half of all online adults 65 and older (56%) use Facebook. This represents 31% of all seniors. 
• Overall, 71% of internet users are on Facebook, a proportion that represents no change from August 2013. 
• 52% of online adults use multiple social media sites. Facebook acts as “home base”—it remains the most popular site for those who only use one, and has significant overlap with other platforms. 

It’s important to note that, according to the survey, “every other social media platform measured saw significant growth between 2013 and 2014.” Click here to read Social Media Update and then get to work on your social media campaigns. Call us if you need help. 

From Google’s Webmaster Central Blog: “Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.” In other words, make the necessary changes to your website or risk losing rankings.

Search Engine Land reports that the algorithm runs on a page by page basis, “So if you have 10 web pages on your web site and 5 of them are mobile-friendly and 5 are not, then only the pages that are mobile-friendly will benefit...Many websites have sub-sections or specialized pages that would be hard to make mobile-friendly, so webmasters do not need to fret about going 100% mobile-friendly by April 21st.” 

Click here to read Google’s Mobile Friendly Websites guide. 

Click here to check if YOUR website is Mobile Friendly or not.

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A study of over 100 million emails found that “Transactional Emails” (those sent to one person as a result of an action triggered by that person) have a click rate that is 42% higher than their newsletter counterparts. Click here to read 5 Things We Learned Analyzing 100 Million+ Emails.

In 2014, email marketing was cited as the most effective digital marketing channel for customer retention in the United States (source: eMarketer).

A new Facebook insights product called “Topic Data” will soon be available to a select group of marketers. Topic Data will show marketers what audiences are saying on Facebook about events, brands, subjects and activities. 

According to WSJ: Facebook for the first time is promising insights companies can use to develop products or decide which audiences to target. A business marketing a hair-de-frizzing product might use Topic Data to see demographic information about people discussing humidity’s effects on their hair. The company might use that information to improve marketing campaigns on Facebook or TV, or to identify potential customers they hadn’t previously considered. 

Facebook plans to “Iterate on Topic Data thoughtfully and deliberately, and look to expand its availability at a later date.” 

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In 2009, Google reached a deal with Twitter to include tweets in search results. That deal expired in 2011, right about the time that Google launched its social network, Google+.

Since then, Google+ has pretty much failed as a social network (but it is important for local SEO). And now, Twitter is often first to announce big breaking news stories.

Reportedly, Google will once again have access to Twitter’s firehose—the stream of data generated by Twitter’s 284 million users. Click here to read “Who wins, Who Loses in the Twitter/Google Deal.”

Twitter content indexed in Google search results: Just one more reason for every small business to be active on Twitter. All social media activity helps build your brand and because Google places a premium on authenticity, branding is a factor in rankings.

Email marketing (newsletters, nurture campaigns, the occasional notifications about products, services, promotions, etc.) keeps your business on the minds of your customers and generates leads and sales. Nurture campaigns can be set up to send automatically, but it’s important to audit your content and make sure it’s up-to-date.

According to a recent report from Mailjet, personalization is a big factor in improving email open rate and engagement, but only about 17% of U.S. marketers personalize email messages. Tailor your emails to customers based on information they’ve provided and their purchasing behavior and you’ll set yourself apart from other businesses that don’t take the time to personalize their emails.

Click here to read more about the strong ROI of email marketing.

While the NFL was broadcasting its halftime extravaganza, YouTube hosted one of its own. YouTube’s show featured zany stunts (such as a guy jumping into a pool of cheese), fake Super Bowl ads and other entertainment provided by YouTube celebrities.

Said Suzie Reider, managing director of brand solutions at Google, “The halftime show falls in nicely with this huge theme for us, which is the notion of brands as creators and the commercial as content...When you’re an advertiser, your ad sits on YouTube next to a piece of content.”

Click here to read more about YouTube’s offbeat halftime show. Click here to learn about advertising on YouTube.

Statcounter.com reports that mobile internet usage in the US grew by 73% in 2014, to reach 24.4% in August and mobile usage has overtaken desktop in several countries. Your website has to be user friendly, and in 2015, that means mobile friendly too. 

A website that is mobile friendly: 

• Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash 
• Uses text that is readable without zooming 
• Sizes content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom 
• Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped 

Additionally, Google recommends making it easy for users to directly connect with you by simply tapping a phone number (click to call). 

InsuranceWebDesigns offerss responsive mobile websites. Not an InsuranceWebDesigns client? Try out Easy Online Mobile!

The big news at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show and posted on Google’s blog: 

This spring, Sony, Sharp and TP Vision, with its range of Philips TVs, will start shipping televisions powered by Android TV. These have all the goodness of Android TV built in so you won’t need to plug anything extra into your television. You can use a single remote to watch live TV channels and play games, movies or shows from Google Play and your apps. 

Where Google goes, advertising follows!

With about 1.35 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the top social media destination. This month, Instagram, with its 300 million users, moved up to second place. Twitter is now in third place with 284 million users.

This is great news for Facebook because Facebook owns Instagram!

To help users connect and follow people and brands, Instagram announced that it will “verify badges for celebrities, athletes and brands, making it easier for you to connect with the authentic accounts you’re looking for.” Click here for more details.

From a 2005 New York Times article: “The name Cyber Monday grew out of the observation that millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed Internet connections at work Monday and buying what they liked.” December 1, 2014 marked the tenth anniversary of Cyber Monday.

According to internetretailer.com: “One universal trend emerged on Cyber Monday and throughout the holiday weekend: Consumers are browsing and buying more online with their mobile devices.” According to Custora, Mobile Shopping (ecommerce orders made on mobile devices) accounted for 21.9 percent of Cyber Monday orders. Email marketing drove 23.9 percent of orders.

The lessons are clear—make sure your website is mobile-friendly. Take the mobile-friendly test here. And, set up an email marketing campaign!

The sign on your business is in disrepair. Packages delivered to your business are blocking your doorway. What do you do? You repair the sign and you move the boxes. You make sure your business is easy to find.

The same care is required for your local online presence. You won’t rank well if you have conflicting information on any one of the thousands of sites where Google and other search engines gather local listings data. And, consumers are confused when they see discrepancies—they’re likely to go to a competitor whose listings are clean and consistent.

Give us a call and we’ll tell you more about local listings management.

Great news for businesses that have more than just one location.

As explained by Search Engine Journal: "Google has made an up-date to AdWords location extensions that allows numerous locations to display in mobile search ads. When several business locations are nearby, users may see as much as three locations in an ad. The extensions can display the street address and distance from the user's current location. Users can click to call or get directions for each location."

Click on this link to read more about location extensions.

Imagine you're just going about your working day a cashier at Target and next thing you know, you're on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. You're widely recognized! Because of social media, all.

That's what happened to #alexfromtarget. The account of how Alex became famous illustrates the mind-blowing power of social media.

Every interaction and communication you have on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social networking sites builds your business and your brand. You probably won't be a sensation like Alex, but you will be where consumers spend huge amounts of time and share huge amounts of content. The amount of information that is shared every day on Facebook is astounding! Facebook has more than one billion users and every 20 minutes, those users share one million links. Twitter is also remarkable in terms of marketing potential.

If you're not on social networking sites, or you're neglecting what you started, get it going today!

Penguin is the algorithm update that's crafted to champion Google in opposition to spam and other techniques that go against its webmaster guidelines.

The version that was released in October 2014, Penguin 3.0, is a global recharge that affected lower than one percent of English search queries.

As indicated by Search Engine Land, "The Penguin formula mainly considers a site's backlink profile ... It should demote sites with bad link profiles and help sites that were previously hit and then cleaned up their link profiles." Click here for more details about Penguin 3.0.

Last month, Barry Ritholtz published his 30,000 th blog post. He posted content-- graphs, investing articles, web links, video clips and economic analysis-- about five to 10 times a day, everyday for 11 years.

In this post, Ritholtz reveals what he's learned about effective writing a blog, featuring his advice on ways to build a good blog.

Basing on this research by HubSpot: Blog frequency impacts customer acquisition. 92 % of companies who blogged multiple times a day acquired a customer through their blog.

You probably don't have time to formulate and write multiple articles each day, but can you assemble a minimum of one? Otherwise, you're missing a key element of SEO.

In February 2013, Facebook announced plans to buy Atlas, Microsoft's ad tracking and serving business. When, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that the corporation had "no plans" to create a network to serve Facebook ads on third-party webpages. (Source: Inside Facebook).

Facebook now has a plan for Atlas and it does involve serving PPC ads on third-party web sites.

According to this Wall Street Journal article, "Atlas is aiming squarely at Google's DoubleClick, the dominant ad-serving, management and tracking tool for agencies and advertisers.".

Visit this site to get more information about Atlas and its potential to "connect online campaigns to actual offline sales, ultimately proving the real impact that digital campaigns have in driving incremental reach and new sales.".

Visit here to review Ello, a new-ish social media platform that's being called the "anti-Facebook" given that it's ad-free and doesn't provide user data to third parties.

September 10, 2014 was a day of protest against proposed changes to net neutrality rules.

Internet Slowdown Day really did not actually slow the internet. Instead, a coalition of companies referred to as Team Internet posted symbolic "loading" icons on their website or blogs to underscore the issue.

FCC rules founded in 2010 compel Internet service providers to treat all web traffic consistently. In 2011, Verizon brought a case against the FCC, charging that alreadying existing rules disallowing companies from buying and selling fast-lane availability were against the law. In January 2014, a federal appeals court ruled in Verizon's favor.

In April, the FCC contemplated updated rules that could create a two-tiered internet-- fast lanes for those who can afford to pay for an enhancement and slower lanes for those who can't.

The FCC received over 3.7 million comments on the topic. The FCC held a series of open internet roundtables discussions but no decision has been announced.

Click this link to read Five Major Ways the Internet Will Change Without Net Neutrality.

If you’ve been meaning to learn about Google Authorship—what it is, how it works, why it’s important for SEO—you can take that off your to-do list. 

In a Google+ post, John Mueller of Google Webmaster Tools wrote: “We’ve gotten lots of useful feedback from all kinds of webmasters and users, and we’ve tweaked, updated, and honed recognition and displaying of authorship information. Unfortunately, we’ve also observed that this information isn’t as useful to our users as we’d hoped, and can even distract from those results. With this in mind, we’ve made the difficult decision to stop showing authorship in search results. We realize authorship wasn’t always easy to implement, and we greatly appreciate the effort you put into continually improving your sites for your users.” 

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Social media is a great way for a small business to attract interest in its products and services. Once you build your social media community, you can get your prospects and customers excited about whatever it is you’re selling. 

For many customers, there’s a big gap between thinking about buying and actually taking the steps to place the order. Some social media platforms are attempting to close that gap by adding a BUY button. 

This month, Twitter announced plans to “publicly test a BUY button that can be embedded in posts to allow users to buy a product with a couple of clicks.” In July, Facebook started a similar test. 

This is a good time to ramp up your social media marketing campaigns so you’re ready when Twitter, Facebook and others open up these selling opportunities to all businesses. 

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Google. Still Google. According to comScore, Google holds 67.6 percent of U.S. search engine market share. How can any ad network compete with a company that owns about two-thirds of search traffic? 

Despite the bold claims made by Bing (remember the Bing challenge?) and industry speculation that Facebook PPC could be a threat, no other PPC platform has been able to make a dent in Google’s booming PPC business. 

Facebook is showing some strength in the mobile advertising space. According to this article, “Facebook is nearly monopolizing the growth in the global mobile ad industry, having more than tripled its share of the market from 2012 to 2013...but Google remains the dominant force with just under half of the mobile ad market (49.3 percent).” 

In the midst of developing Amazon Prime Air (drones delivering packages to customers in 30 minutes or less. Really!), Amazon has been working on a new ad platform that's designed to be a direct challenge to Google AdWords. Perhaps Amazon will finally give Google AdWords some real competition. 

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According to an article in Time magazine: “Companies have been promising the dawn of the smart home–a futuristic dwelling full of gadgets working seamlessly to satisfy your every whim–since the ’50s. Yet early efforts failed to deliver because of clunky tech and consumer wariness.” 

A company called SmartThings has built a platform that allows the objects in your home–doors, locks, lightbulbs, even sprinkler systems–to talk to one another and prioritize your needs. 

SmartThings has competition from other companies with more familiar names, such as Apple, AT&T and Google. But according to the Time article, “SmartThings, though smaller and less resource-rich than the tech titans, is well positioned to lead the pack. Unlike bigger companies, it doesn’t have an established business model to protect, so it can reimagine the connected home from scratch.” 

This month, SmartThings was acquired by Samsung. 

Click here to read This Startup is Trying to Create—and Control—the Internet of Your Home. 

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Research shows that the internet is now the primary way that most US consumers find local business information and search engines were identified as the primary tool used by consumers to find local information. 

Furthermore, “While the internet has emerged as the go-to source for finding location information and details about businesses ranging from hair salons and veterinary clinics to gyms and restaurants, it is rife with errors. As a result, companies are missing out on customers at their bricks-and-mortar stores, and driving them to competitors, say analysts.” (Financial Times 3/4/13) 

Your business address, phone number, email address, hours, policies, specials and other details—they’re all subject to change. Make sure your local listings are up-to-date. 

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Google’s recent local search algorithm update has no official name; Search Engine Land calls it “Pigeon.” So we’ll go with that. 

According to a Search Engine Land report: “The new local search algorithm ties deeper into their web search capabilities, including the hundreds of ranking signals they use in web search along with search features such as Knowledge Graph, spelling correction, synonyms and more. In addition, Google said that this new algorithm improves their distance and location ranking parameters. The new algorithm is currently rolling out for US English results and aims to provide a more useful and relevant experience for searchers seeking local results.” 

Click here to read more. 

Upon the arrival of Google+ Local, many small business owners who were attempting to manage their Google local listings finally had to admit defeat. Local listings management has never been easy, but it seems that Google has done more to complicate matters than fix them. The new Google My Business product looks like a big improvement. 

According to Google: 
If you previously used Google Places for Business or Google+ Pages Dashboard to manage your business information, your account has been automatically upgraded to Google My Business. Google My Business makes it easier than ever to update business information across Google Search, Maps and Google+. Google My Business puts your business info on Search, Maps and Google+ so that customers can find you, no matter what device they’re using.

Click here to read Frequently Asked Questions about Google My Business. 

Social media can be the perfect spot for small business owners to communicate with customers and attract the attention of prospective customers. Click here to read “Nine Small Business Social Media Success Stories.” 

Many small business owners have neither the time nor the inclination to become fluent in the language and etiquette of social media. Even those who do attempt to figure it all out will struggle to design, implement and fine-tune the campaign. 

Outsourcing is certainly a good option, but no one knows your company like you do. When you hire an individual or a firm to manage your social media, keep in mind that you’re an important part of the team—the one who ensures that social media interactions are authentic and represent the essence of your company. 

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Three years ago, a company called Aereo began offering subscribers a cloud-based television antenna that accessed live, over the air broadcast television. Membership included a remote cloud-based DVR to set and watch recordings. According to the company’s website, the basic monthly membership was available to consumers in select areas for $8 a month. This is all in the past because Aereo has been effectively shut down. 

On June 25th, in the case of American Broadcasting Companies v. Aereo, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against Aereo, finding that the service provided by Aereo violated copyright laws. Click here to read Aereo’s response to the ruling. 

Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito dissented. Scalia wrote: “The Court should be in no position to make judgments on recently new technologies, and it is instead Congress’s job to determine if the copyright laws should be modified to address these issues.” 

Aereo is encouraging consumers to “Contact legislators through Twitter, Facebook and Email and protect your right to use a cloud-based antenna.” 

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In December 2013, Facebook released Premium Video Ads, “designed for advertisers who want to reach a large audience with high-quality sight, sound and motion. Each 15-second video ad will start playing without sound as it appears on screen and stop if people scroll past.” Nice...but not affordable for small businesses. 

Facebook video ads no longer require a Fortune 500 budget. With expanded video capabilities, small businesses can use Facebook’s standard video ads to “encourage people to engage more deeply with their brand and products is by adding a call-to-action inviting people to learn more and visit a destination of their choice, like a specific page on a website, after viewing the video.” 

According to an article on Adweek.com, internet video ads have higher impact than TV ads. Click here to read more. 

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In 2006, CBS placed laser imprints of its logo and logos for some of its shows on 35 million eggs with slogans like “Crack the case on CBS” (for the show CSI) and “Scramble to win on CBS” (The Amazing Race). 

New Zealand clothing store Suprette put indented plates on bus stop, mall, and park benches, so that when people sat down, the company’s advertising message “short shorts on sale” was imprinted on their thighs. 

A Salt Lake City woman sold ad space on her forehead for $10,000. Karolyne Smith now has a permanent GoldenPalace.com tattoo across her forehead. 

While unusual and creative ads placements can attract attention, online marketing campaigns are more targeted and, when properly managed, capable of tracking conversions and ROI. PPC Remarketing Ads are especially powerful for helping small businesses turn leads into conversions.

I get asked this question alot... "How do I add admins to my Facebook Business Page?" - so, it just made sense to go ahead and produce a video that quickly and easily shows you, step by step, how to do it.

According to a recent study by Bunnyfoot (a usability and user experience design firm), an estimated one-third of people who use Google Search don’t recognize the difference between a paid ad and an organic result. In other words, a significant number of people think the item at the top of the page is there because it’s the best match for their search query. 

After hundreds of tests over the past decade, the team at Bunnyfoot concluded that, “... it is very difficult to predict what customers’ knowledge or understanding is. When you do the tests, you are often humbled and surprised with how far off your assumptions are.” This is a good reminder that it’s unwise to assume you know what your customers are thinking.

Online marketing is a great and necessary investment, but so is your website. 

According to a study by Missouri University of Science and Technology, it takes users less than two-tenths of a second to form a first impression of a website. 

With so little time to make a good first impression, it’s important that your website:

• Has a crystal clear call to action.
• Is uncluttered and easy to navigate.
• Includes “real” images that genuinely represent your company (keep the stock images to a minimum).
• Is mobile-friendly.
• Provides useful information (i.e., load it up with quality content).

Make sure your website is a place where people want to spend time. And remember, the majority of first-time visitors to a website leave without completing a conversion. Click here to find out how PPC retargeting can bring people back to your website. 

Google, Facebook, Twitter and AOL have joined together to launch TrustInAds.org, with the mission to keep the user experience positive for everyone on the web and keep ads safe. 

From the TrustInAds website:

...There are scammers that try to “game the system” to find ways to exploit consumers by getting harmful and deceptive ads published on reputable websites. In many cases, these ads - on the surface - appear normal and harmless, but may surreptitiously redirect a person to webpages that can install malware to a computer or mobile devices, direct them to scam or phishing websites, or try to sell them counterfeit goods.

Any effort to thwart the bad actors on the internet helps the upstanding businesses that depend on leads from their PPC advertising campaigns. Click here for more information about TrustInAds.org.

In a 1995 Newsweek article, author and astronomer Clifford Stoll wrote:

We’re promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals...Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn’t—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.

In the same 1995 Newsweek article, Stoll wrote, “The truth is, no online database will replace your daily newspaper.” Countless newspapers have since gone out of business and at the end of 2012, Newsweek went completely digital.

Stoll wasn’t the only one who was way off with his predictions about the internet.

In 2004, Bill Gates said, “spam will soon be a thing of the past.”

In 1995, Robert Metcalfe said the internet will “go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”

Read more predictions for the web on CNN.com.

Every March, millions of people fill out a NCAA tournament bracket (or two, or three...), join the office pool, watch the games and track who’s in and who’s out. Workplace productivity takes a big hit during the three weeks of March Madness.

Social media, where people go to get updates on games, celebrate wins and grumble about losses, is now a huge part of the phenomenon that is March Madness.

Twitter reported that during the championship game, there were more than two million Tweets around the world containing terms related to the telecast. And on Facebook, from early buzz and bracket building after Selection Sunday, through the Final Four and championship games, more than 15.3 million U.S. users posted, commented on or “liked” tournament-related content 46 million times.

Consumers are all over social media and every business should be there with them. It’s never too late to get started on a social media marketing campaign!

In March, Google made a number of changes to its search results layout. Jon Wiley, Lead Designer for Google Search, summarized the modifications in his Google+ post:

We’ve increased the size of result titles, removed the underlines, and evened out all the line heights. This improves readability and creates an overall cleaner look. We’ve also brought over our new ad labels from mobile, making the multi-device experience more consistent.

Previously, ads were placed over a shaded background and now, they are differentiated by a small yellow “Ad” button. People who cover industry news can’t seem to agree whether the new layout makes ads more obvious, or less obvious. Many believe the ads now blend in with organic search results and more people will click on them—an advantage, perhaps, for advertisers with well-structured PPC campaigns.

WhatsApp is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows users to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. Last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an agreement to buy WhatsApp for $16 billion—$4 billion in cash and $12 billion in Facebook shares. Much like Instagram (another startup acquired by Facebook), WhatsApp will operate independently within Facebook.

In a February 19 Facebook post, Zuckerberg wrote: “I’m looking forward to what Facebook and WhatsApp can do together, and to developing great new mobile services that give people even more options for connecting.”

Privacy groups have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission that reads (in part):

WhatsApp built a user base based on its commitment not to collect user data for advertising revenue. Acting in reliance on WhatsApp representations, Internet users provided detailed personal information to the company including private text to close friends. Facebook routinely makes use of user information for advertising purposes and has made clear that it intends to incorporate the data of WhatsApp users into the user profiling business model. The proposed acquisition will therefore violate WhatsApp users’ understanding of their exposure to online advertising.

Click here to read the entire complaint.

The laptop freed us from the desktop computer. The smartphone and tablet took us mobile. If recent Google news (Google is Finally Getting Serious About Wearables) and popularity of SXSW conference sessions on the topic of wearable devices are any indicator, we’ll all soon be suited up with smartglasses, smartwatches and other tech devices.

The standing room only SXSW “Accelerator” event consisted of five-minute pitches by 16 new businesses selected from 500 companies that applied. Companies selected for the wearable technologies category were:

• BioNym - presented the Nymi, a wristband that uses an electrocardiogram as a means to connect people to devices and services without requiring passwords.
• Wearable Solar - showed off its clothing designs that feature cells that charge a phone when the clothes are worn for two hours in direct sunlight.
• Skully (winner in the category) - demonstrated the Skully motorcycle helmet with an advanced situational awareness system, showing navigation and blind spot data. The company has already partnered with Harley Davidson.

Imagine the marketing opportunities when wearable technology becomes ubiquitous!

Did you know that Pay-Per-Click Advertising can be targeted exclusively to people who have visited your website? These are people who have already demonstrated an interest in your products and services.

The large majority of first-time visitors to a website leave without completing a conversion. One visit to your website is usually not enough to close the deal. A PPC Retargeting campaign brings people back and gives you more opportunities to convert your prospective customers.

Click here for more information about PPC Retargeting (aka Remarketing) and click here to read a Retargeting success story.

Who could have predicted that an online social network would change the world?

In February 2004, Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg launched “The Facebook” as an exclusive social network for Harvard students. Gradually, Facebook was opened to more users and by 2006, anyone over 13 could join. By December 2013, Facebook had grown to 1.23 billion monthly active users. (Source: Facebook Newsroom).

Click here to read Key Dates in Facebook’s 10-Year History and click here to see the first article ever written about Facebook.

Facebook not only changed the world, it changed the way we interact with our customers and prospects—at least for those of us who take advantage of the opportunities Facebook and other social media sites offer.

At minimum, every small business should have a profile on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter—customers and prospects expect to see you there. Social media is important for building brand awareness, connecting with customers and prospects, sharing your blogs, articles, videos, infographics and other content created for your SEO campaign.

In January, Google paid 3.2 billion cash for Nest, a company that designs and manufactures sensor-driven, Wi-Fi-enabled, self-learning, programmable thermostats and smoke detectors.

Marcus Wohlsen of Wired wrote, “The value Google sells its customers—that is, advertisers—lies in its peerless understanding of our online behavior...One area of human behavior Google has yet to colonize as successfully is what we do when we’re not directly interacting with a screen...That in theory changes with Nest.”

When asked if customer data will be shared with Google, Nest founder Tony Fadell said, “Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s products and services. We’ve always taken privacy seriously and this will not change.”

There was a time when Google put users’ privacy first—from 2002: Google uses cookies to track user trends and patterns to better understand our user base and to improve the quality of our service. Google may also choose to use cookies to store user preferences. A cookie can tell us, “This is the same computer that visited Google two days ago,” but it cannot tell us, “This person is Joe Smith” or even, “This person lives in the United States.” Now, compare that to Google’s current policy.

Considering Google’s privacy policy evolution, some question Fadell’s assurance that Nest’s privacy policy won’t change. Tech industry blogger Sam Biddle tweeted, “If your house is burning down you’ll now get gmail ads for fire extinguishers.”☺

In an August 2013 interview, Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann said, “The big-picture assumption of the company is that there is a direct link between the things you pin and the things that you eventually spend money on. In there, we think, lies a model where we can actually make Pinterest more useful. And we can help businesses by bringing in more customers and helping them sell things and connect with people.”

Pinterest’s investors have helped boost the company’s value to $3.8 billion and now the pressure is on to start generating revenue. Though it has experimented with Promoted Pins, Pinterest has yet to develop a viable advertising product. That could soon change.

Earlier this month, Pinterest acquired VisualGraph, an image recognition and visual search platform. Currently, Pinterest’s search functionality relies largely on user-generated, haphazard descriptions of pinned images. In theory, with VisualGraph’s image recognition technology, Pinterest could detect items in the pinned images and deliver ads to users based on the products and services represented in their pins.

A study by J.D. Power discovered that in 2012, 47 percent of vehicle owners indicated they used a downloaded app on their smart device for navigation in their car or truck, compared with 37 percent in 2011. Notably, 46 percent of owners indicate they "definitely would not" or "probably would not" repurchase a factory-installed navigation system if their smartphone navigation could be displayed on a central screen in their car.

Who wants to pay for an old style navigation system when we have smartphones with free map service? And a pricey built-in DVD package when we have hand-held devices to keep passengers (i.e., whining kids) occupied during car trips? Car manufacturers are on the losing end of these advances in technology; they've seen the future and they want a piece of it.

In June 2012, BMW, GM, Mercedes, Jaguar, Audi, Land Rover, Toyota, Chrysler and Honda coordinated with Apple to incorporate "eyes free" Siri-compatibility into their automobiles. Using a voice command button on the steering wheel, Siri Eyes Free enables the driver to make and receive calls, select and play music, audibly send and receive text messages, access Maps and get directions, audibly receive notifications, set reminders and more, all without looking away from the road.

This month, Google, along with technology and auto industry leaders, announced the "Open Automotive Alliance" (OAA). The OAA is committed to bringing the Android platform to cars, with the goal of making technology in the car safer, more seamless and more intuitive for everyone.

Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of NVIDIA said, "The car is the ultimate mobile computer. With onboard supercomputing chips, futuristic cars of our dreams will no longer be science fiction. The OAA will enable the car industry to bring these amazing cars to market faster.".

The first cars with Android integration are expected to be delivered by the end of 2014.

In 2014, Content Marketing is still the key to a powerful SEO campaign and an active, engaging social media presence. The opportunities for content placement are increasing because online publishers will need to generate income!

The banner ads on newspaper and magazine websites are not doing the job; the typical click-through rate is approximately.1 percent. (Source: DoubleClick). Online publishers, including such heavyweights as The New York Times, Buzzfeed and Vanity Fair, are hoping Native Advertising will boost click through rates and increase revenue.

The objective of Native Advertising is to complement an article with helpful information from a paid sponsor. Like other forms of content marketing, native ads do not specifically market the sponsor's product or service. The expectation is that a reader will would like to engage with the sponsored content because, unlike a banner ad, a native ad contains information that is specific to the article that has already attracted the visitor's attention.

While a small business probably can't afford a native ad placement on The New York Times website, there are affordable options-- 73 percent of online publishers and media companies offer some kind of native advertising program. (Source: eMarketer)

Many companies use video to promote the brand, products and services. Some are taking it to the extreme, using pretty amazing cameras like the GoPro to demonstrate a product from the user’s point of view.

The GoPro camera was originally invented for surfers, to shoot the view inside the curl of a wave. But that was just the beginning. In the March 2013 edition of Forbes, Ryan Mac wrote: “The cinema-grade, panoramic, point-of-view footage that comes out of a GoPro transforms mere mortals into human highlight reels, without blowing a huge hole in the budget.”

Cameras like the GoPro let you get hugely creative, but a nicely produced video that highlights your company and your brand gives a strong boost to your SEO campaign. Video tends to be more engaging than text. And, video is a great way to add content to your website, attract organic traffic and build up your presence on YouTube.

Not a virtual barge, a real barge, docked in San Francisco Bay. A second one has been towed into Portland Harbor, Maine and reportedly, two more are under construction.

As with all things Google, there’s plenty of mystery because Google isn’t saying much. On November 6th, Google released this statement: “Although it’s still early days and things may change, we’re exploring using the barge as an interactive space where people can learn about new technology.”

The barges are owned by a company called By and Large, LLC, which appears to be a front for Google. It has not gone unnoticed that the name of the fictional company in WALL-E, the animated film about a robot who is designed to clean up a futuristic waste-covered Earth, is Buy N Large. For more insight, read Google’s crazy barge scheme: Your complete guide.

Twitter’s IPO price was set at $26 per share, valuing the company at $18.34 billion. Trading began on November 7th with the price rising to a high of $50, then closing at $44.90. At the end of the first day of trading, Twitter was valued at $25 billion! Keep in mind, this is a company that has never turned a profit and posted a loss of nearly $65 million for its most recent quarter.

Twitter has become part of the global culture with 230 million users tweeting, retweeting, following and lurking. How often do you hear a respected news anchor report on a tweet from a politician, celebrity, or even the Pope? And the hashtags—some people actually write and speak in hashtags! Whether we actively use the service or not, Twitter affects us.

Mark Mahaney, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets said, “When people use Twitter they are following certain people, they’re searching for specific information. There are powerful marketing signals that are almost Google-esque, something that Facebook doesn’t really have.” Google-esque?? We’ll see if Twitter joins the ranks of Google, in terms of profitability. In an interview with CNBC, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said, “There’s nothing structural about Twitter that prevents us from having the kind of margin profiles of our peer group.” Read the interview for more on Twitter’s plans for the future.

Click here to learn how to use Twitter’s new custom-timeline feature and click here to read about advertising opportunities on Twitter.

Admin user interface up-dates

The updated site builder includes new colors and icons to produce a more constant user experience on desktop as well as tablets. The side navigation menu is now collapsible, creating more space in the main content areas for adjusting settings.

Mobile website responsive/css
The new site builder update will instantly create a smartphone website based off of your alreadying existing main website pages. There is no need to edit the mobile website. The mobile site uses responsive/css design techniques to tweak the display to fit on smaller resolution devices.

When editing your site, you will see "website" and "mobile" links at the top right of the edit area. These links allow you to easily toggle between desktop and mobile views of the page that you are currently editing. The automatic mobile site could be disabled if you want your full web site to display on mobile devices. Custom settings include adjusting the mobile navigation bar, enabling your main menu, and choosing to enable/disable your site logo and banner.

The automatic mobile site can be disabled if you want your full website to display on mobile devices. There is no need to worry about or adjust image sizes (option to manually sizes images is still available if you wish to use it). You simply upload your images and the system scales the images to fit/fill in the content area. The new image styles take advantage of CSS features included in new HTML5 browsers (latest IE, Firefox, Chrome and most mobile browsers). The styles can apply to default images on your site, photo galleries and all of your product images.

Image gallery
Image galleries will be much easier to manage. If you prefer to use it), there is no need to worry about or adjust image sizes (option to manually sizes images is still available. You simply upload your images and the system scales the images to fit/fill in the content area. You just need to set the number of columns to use for the display. The images are adjusted to fit if the page width grows/shrinks.

Image styles
The new image styles make use of CSS features included in new HTML5 browsers (latest IE, Firefox, Chrome and most mobile browsers). This includes images with rounded corners, enhanced borders, shadows and circular shaped images. Choose from up to 4 different styles of images and apply them to your web-site. The styles can apply to default images on your site, photo galleries and all of your product images.

HTML5 audio support
If it is available in your browser, the updated audio player takes advantage of HTML5 support. This allows the audio to work much better across different platforms and devices like phones and tablets.

Payment gateways
Two new payment gateways have been added
- Stripe
- PayMill

HTML5 microformats
Support for HTML5 microformats has been put into product pages. Microformats are extra information added to the HTML of website pages that make things easier for search engines to index your website. It also allows for websites such as Pintrest to display more detailed information about your services and products with the Pintrest Rich Pins feature.

Design
New layouts and background images have been added.

POP3 email accounts can now be upgraded to IMAP email accounts.  IMAP is an email protocol which keeps email stored on the server and allows a better email experience when customers are using multiple email clients/devices to access their email.  It also provides a backup of email in case the device storing messages fails.  

Fortune magazine called Amazon.com founder, Jeff Bezos, the ultimate disrupter when he was chosen as its 2012 Businessperson of the Year. Last week, Bezos bought The Washington Post newspaper, a premier brand in the content world, for $250 million. In a memo to Post employees, Bezos wrote that he’s “excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention.”

*According to the most recent internet usage data published in June 2012 by Nielsen Online and reported by internetworldstats.com, internet service is available to about 34% of the world's population. North America has the highest percentage of coverage; Africa, the lowest.

• North America - 79%
• Oceania/Australia - 68%
• Europe - 63%
• Latin America/Caribbean - 43%
• Middle East - 40%
• Asia - 28%
• Africa - 16%

Total number of internet users worldwide, as of June 2012: 2,405,518,376.

Instead of standing by waiting for internet service providers to tap the two-thirds of the population without internet access (see data, below*), Google is working toward servicing those areas with balloon powered internet. Essentially, 'Project Loon' works like this: balloons are moved around in the stratosphere and sent into a layer of wind that's moving in the right direction, creating a large communications network to which people can connect via an antenna attached to their building. Not surprisingly, Project Loon was founded by MIT-trained scientist, Richard DeVaul.

Recently, Google introduced Carousel for local search results. Now, when you search for a local business like a hotel or restaurant, the results appear in an interactive carousel at the top of the page. Click on one of the results in the carousel and you'll see the address, photos, overall review-based score and links to the actual reviews.

Any SEO provider who's trying to do the right thing will tell you that SEO is so much harder than it used to be. Content marketing takes far more time and effort than the link building tactics that worked years ago. Some try to cut corners by writing one article and posting that one article on multiple websites. That's duplicate content. It's certainly efficient for the SEO provider, but not effective for search results. Let's say Google gives you points for content marketing:

• One unique article posted on one site - 1 point.
• One unique article posted on two, three, four or more sites - may look impressive,
  but still - 1 point.
• Four unique articles posted on four sites - 4 points.

You get no credit for duplicate content. Duplicate content does nothing for search rankings but seeing their articles duplicated on numerous websites might impress those who don’t know better. You know better! 

The best way forward is to focus on the future and diversify your online marketing.
Build your online brand with social media, press releases, guest blogs, infographics, videos and all forms of content marketing.
Look into pay-per-click advertising. It may be more affordable than you think. A small business can run a very tight PPC campaign targeted to very specific locations and generate leads for less than the cost of other types of advertising. Set up a lead capture form on your website and track phone calls to get a true measure of your cost per lead. 

Though just about everyone in the online marketing business has something to say about the latest Google Penguin Update, conflicting information and mass confusion abound. Even the so-called experts are struggling to understand and articulate the effect that Penguin has had across the web. Google's system of numbering the Penguin updates hasn't helped.

Take a look at this Timelapse site, created by Time Inc. and Google. According to Google's blog: Google worked with the USGS to make an archive of earth imagery available online. Using Google Earth Engine technology, Google sifted through 2,068,467 images to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. Google then worked with the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, recipients of a Google Focused Research Award, to convert these annual Earth images into a seamless, browsable HTML5 animation. 

Both! In spite of the rash of Google updates and other covert maneuvers, link-building is still necessary for search rankings. Google has made it crystal clear that high quality content is what it wants. But Google is not quite so upfront about links. We do know that quality onsite and offsite content is just part of effective SEO. You still need to get those links. Link building tactics have changed and will continue to change in response to Google updates. Looks like another Google update is coming soon. 

Like many in the online marketing business, we are fascinated by Google Glass, though mostly because it's very futuristic and very cool (OR ridiculous, depending on who you ask). Whether or not we'll someday consider Google Glass users when we're developing marketing strategies remains to be seen. Remember, there was once a time when we didn't put any thought into mobile devices like phones and tablets. Maybe Google Glass will catch on and we'll all be talking to our glasses and taking a picture with just a wink!
 

More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month and over 4 billion hours of video are watched. YouTube is the third most visited site, just behind Google and Facebook (source: Alexa). Some of those videos go viral, creating a YouTube sensation. (Where would Justin Bieber be without YouTube? Probably back home in Canada).

Scared of Pay Per Click? Don’t have the budget? Set up a retargeting only campaign. 'Retargeting' is literally re-targeting people; showing ads only to people who visit your website. They were interested in a product or service you have to offer--that’s why they visited your site in the first place. Your ads will appear on other publisher's websites as a reminder to come back to your website. It’s an easy, simple, friendly, inexpensive way to get more customers who don’t convert when they first check out your website. Call us to learn more about the varieties of Pay Per Click campaigns.

What is 'newsjacking,' other than a term that we’ve started to hear tossed around lately? For starters, it is a natural extension of content marketing and it is NOT a bad thing. It’s really just another smart way to do SEO right. To newsjack is to contribute to the conversation on highly visible breaking news relevant to one’s own industry.
 

How To Newsjack:
1) Pay attention to breaking news
2) Identify the keywords being searched for related to the breaking news
3) Produce high-quality content relevant to your business incorporating the keywords you have identified
4) Syndicate content quickly so that it can be found by other media outlets

For instance, if breaking news is 'President Obama Releases Budget', you can write about how the new budget may affect your specific industry using the keywords you’ve carefully researched. Then people who are searching for the news might see your content and become interested in your business!

Newsjacking leverages breaking news and the search demand on the corresponding keywords to gain visibility in the search rankings. Give it a try.

Google Places for Business continues to merge Google’s offerings. Now users will be able to access their Google+ and Google Local page from the same place, making Google Local and Social more unified. Will Google local search and social media continue to become one? We’ve been wondering for awhile! Google Places for Business is still in its infancy, but we’ll keep you posted on changes and new features in Google’s offerings.

50% of businesses don’t have a website! You probably do because you’re our client, but that doesn’t exempt you...

 This short video shows you how to easily add a blog to your website. 

 The Google Maps app is once again on the iPhone.

System Update 4.40 - Fully Deployed

Button component

Linked list component

Design

• New layouts
• New Google fonts

Misc updates

• Mailing list default font setting
• IPAD text editor
• Default styles for accordion and tabs content areas
• ReCaptchaTM setting - enhanced form spam protection

Overlay/popup window

• add text, images, components
• open on page load
• delayed open
• click link to open

To create a popup/overlay box edit any page. Click the add button and choose the popup overlay component from the design/layout menu.

Google's Panda update, released over a year ago, was designed to target low quality content. In June, Google pushed out two Panda refreshes. For those of you keeping score, we’re now up to Panda 3.8.

Note that a refresh is different from an update:

• An update is a change to Google's algorithm
• A refresh reruns the existing algorithm to catch any sites that are in violation. Unlike an update, it does not change the algorithm.

The original Panda update impacted about 12% of search worldwide and the refreshes in June impacted only about 1%. This is yet another reminder of the importance of online marketing diversification and producing quality content with the end user in mind.

There's ALWAYS something new in social media!

Due to Twitter's new restrictions on how third-party developers are permitted to use its API, the LinkedIn/Twitter partnership that began in 2009 is over. In a blog post, Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn head of content wrote, 'If you had previously synced your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts, and selected the option to share Tweets on LinkedIn, those Tweets generated from Twitter will no longer appear on LinkedIn.'

The ongoing patent dispute between Facebook and Yahoo has been resolved and the former enemies are now working toward an advertising and content partnership. Read Facebook Newsroom for more details.

Facebook is reportedly planning to sell mobile ads that will target users based on the apps they've downloaded through its Facebook Connect feature. Read more about the controversial advertising strategy here.

According to a recent industry report, SEO is #1 when it comes to generating leads. The report is based on a survey of over 500 marketing professionals. 53% of all participants said SEO makes the biggest impact on lead generation, followed by 28% for PPC and 19% for social media.

We’re not surprised. Most of our clients get significantly more leads from SEO than any other online channel. We get great results from PPC and Social Media campaigns too and that’s because we set and measure goals. We’d be happy to give you recommendations on PPC and/or Social Media for your business.

Google Analytics Won’t Keep You Waiting

Government Antitrust Officials Have a Few Questions for Google

As government antitrust officials have begun investigating Google, Eric Schmidt, former Google chief executive, is trying to reassure lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee that the internet search company is not illegally abusing its power.

The antitrust argument stems from concerns about Google’s domination of and influence on search marketing. Competitors accuse Google of giving its own content top placement in its search results. As Google has expanded into products beyond search (maps, shopping, travel), competitors are growing more troubled.

Proving that Google is violating antitrust law will be complicated—the law was written long before the existence of the internet. Others have tried and failed to take Google down a notch; this may be the first real threat against Google’s reign! For now though, nothing has changed; our SEO campaigns will continue to target Google. SEO is still all about Google.

There Are Customers Waiting for You on Social Media!

When Facebook makes any change to its interface, you can expect plenty of complaints from Facebook users. And that’s just what happened a few weeks ago when Facebook introduced:
1. Subscribe Button that gives you a way to follow the content others are posting without actually becoming Facebook friends with them (similar to following somebody on Twitter),
2. Upgraded "Friends" List that allows you to easily organize your friends into groups, and
3. Real-Time News Ticker that feeds content based on the last time you checked in so you won’t miss important status updates and new photos.

These are just a few of the big changes and many more are coming. Yes, people complained, but they’re not really going anywhere. Most users have too much invested in Facebook, and love it or hate it, that’s where their friends are. Nevertheless, Facebook knows that it must stay fresh and continue building an emotional connection with users to hold on to its status as the social media leader.

Many businesses don’t think that their products/services are interesting enough to get a following on social media. How can a small hardware store, for example, get a following on Facebook? The first step is to get conversations going about related topics—offer tips on home improvement, decorating and gardening. Illustrate your postings with photos/videos of your products and services. Your products and services don’t always have to be front and center in the conversation.

If you need help figuring out how to get the social media conversation going for your business and how to generate leads from your social media campaigns, ask us. We can brainstorm ideas and get your campaign up and running. The data from your social media campaigns will be reported on your dashboard, alongside your other search marketing campaigns

Google’s Big Investment in Local Search

Last week, Google acquired Zagat (perhaps the first restaurant review guide to rely on crowdsourcing) for a reported $125 million. Established in 1979, Zagat originally published reviews of local restaurants and later added reviews of other local businesses such as movie theaters, nightlife and retailers. Google estimates that about 20% of its daily searches are for local businesses and when mobile search is factored in, the percentage is even higher. Local online advertising is a very lucrative and rapidly growing market.

All of this tells us two things: local search is hugely important for every business and your business must have a presence on local search if you want to be competitive. Our Local SEO Service helps you maximize your exposure in local directories and map sites, including Google Places, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, Yelp and many more. We make sure your listings are optimized so that your business gets noticed on mobile devices too.

Social Media Is Not Just for Kids

Social media sites have a tremendous appeal to teenagers and young adults but what about the older crowd? In 2005, about 5% of U.S. adults were using social media. Last year, that number exploded to 61% and this year, 65%. The largest segment of recent growth is senior citizens. 30% of adults ages 65 and older say they now use social-networking sites.

Many small businesses attempt to attract customers on “free” social media sites but find it costly in terms of time. If you want to see results from a social media campaign, you must have a strategy and goals that will help you measure your return on that investment of time. If you’d like our advice on social media marketing, give us a call.

Bing: One Year Later

In August of 2010, Yahoo and Microsoft combined their resources in a new search engine called “Bing.” Many in the search marketing community were anxious to see how this would impact Google’s domination of the industry. So what’s the damage? One year later, Google’s U.S. market share is down from 71% to 65%. Bing’s share grew 4%, from 24% to 28%. In March 2010, Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer said, “Tomorrow’s goal is to gain a few points, a tenth here, a tenth there, and just keep working and working.” Slow, steady growth is their goal and after one year, it looks like they’re on the right path.

People who do pay-per-click advertising should max out their budget on Google—that’s where the traffic is. Bing hasn’t changed that. Bing is a viable service to add for high budget campaigns. If you’re interested, we’d be happy to advise you on PPC for your business. You may even want to consider a retargeting campaign. You’ve probably noticed ads following you as you surf the web—that’s retargeting. Let us know if you have any questions about PPC advertising.

 Make sure your domain name is meaningful and easy to remember. Short domain names are always better than really long ones. Easy To Remember.