How did you search this year? View the trending list for 2017.
Should You Stop Selling SEO Services? This Guy Thinks So
I came across this post today and I really believe it is something everyone read. Ryan really nailed it!
My core in digital marketing came out of SEO and you may know as the Digital Marketing Strategist, it is something that falls on my shoulders for our clients at Scheffey. So the title of the post might shock you. Why I Stopped Selling SEO Services and You Should, Too.
So here’s the thing. For companies to really be successful online it’s truly about optimizing the web experience not just for a search engine. I’ll let you read the article to see exactly what I mean, but two things really jumped out at me.
“Yelp is a search engine. Facebook is a search engine. Twitter is a search engine. Amazon is a search engine. Quora is a search engine. Pinterest is a search engine. YouTube is a search engine. See where I’m going?”
Are you just optimizing for Google? If so, you probably need to think bigger than that.
And the way that the author’s girlfriend found furniture for their new apartment. Hint, it wasn’t Google.
The bottom line is SEO is evolving and unless we as digital marketers evolve with it, we will be left in the dust. 
Here’s a link to the post, happy reading: Why I Stopped Selling SEO Services and You Should, Too
Micro-Moments That Every Marketer Should Know
This spring Google Announced that mobile-search has surpassed desktop search in the US. Knowing this we as marketers need to evolve to understand how people are going online and what is driving their usage.
What micro-moments are driving engagement for your brand?
Check out the infographic from Google.
4 New Moments Every Marketer Should Know
Google’s New Mobile-Friendly Update Does Not Affect AdWords
You may have heard the news from Google that they have updated their algorithm to include mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. The update, which went into effect on April 21, 2015, will only affect organic search, NOT paid search/AdWords. In fact mobile-friendliness has been part of the AdWords quality score since 2011.
This was confirmed by Kate O’Donovan from the Google AdWords team in Dublin. She posted the announcement in the Google AdWords Help forum:
Starting Today, April 21 2015, 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.
While this change will not impact your advertising campaigns, mobile friendliness has been an ads quality factor since November 2011
She also ended her post by stating it even more clearly:
Remember this update will not affect your AdWords performance or your individual Quality Scores.
What’s the take away from this? Well, if you haven’t updated your site to be mobile friendly and you’re running paid search ad campaigns with AdWords, you’re probably already taking a hit on your quality score for mobile ads. You can overcome this, but generally if you want to overcome poor quality scores, you will end up paying more for your clicks. But the most recent update to Google’s Algorithm will not change this.
Want to check if your pages are mobile-friendly? Google gives us a great tool for this: Google’s Mobile Friendly Test Tool. They’ve also created a guide to help you get your site mobile-friendly: Google Mobile Guide
How Remarketing Works (Infographic)
Google in 2012 What’s New
I recently started a series of post over on my company blog about the changes that Larry Page and Google have recently made. They are doing some very interesting and in some cases scary things. Check out the excerpts from the first two posts in the series.
New Google Search Ad Placement
The first update you may have noticed as you were using Google Search is a redesign of ad placement. Ads that previously appeared on the right side of search results will in some cases be moved to below search results.
If you want to know if your ads are performing better in the top positions as apposed to all other positions, you’re in luck. Google will soon be launching a custom “Top vs. Other” segment. All placements on the side, at the bottom are labeled and other experimental placements will be labeled as “other”.
Read the full post: The New Google. Does “Don’t be Evil” Still Apply? – Part 1
YouTube Homepage Makeover
The new redesign, which YouTube describes as the biggest redesign in history, is a move to personalize the user experience on the site as well as better integration with social media services. Plus if that wasn’t enough, Google has changed the focus of the site to a channel centric experience, which puts them in competition with broadcast and cable tv.
When you first log in you’ll notice that the homepage is focused around channels and the “homepage feed.” The feed contains the channels that a user is subscribed to, which can contain channels such official music from the Warner Music Group, video hobbyists or branded channels. Users can control what is in their feed with the navigation bar on the left and recommended videos and ads populate the right column. It looks very similar to social media sites such as Facebook.
Read the full post: YouTube Update: The New Google. Does “Don’t be Evil” Still Apply? – Part 2
Wikia Search Alpha Goes Live Today
From e-Life
Wikia Search is the new user-based, or social search engine. The brain child of Wikimedia Foundation’s founder and CEO Jimmy Wales.
Wales admits that comparing Wikia Search on day one to Google is not possible. Here’s what he said on Tech Crunch:
“(Wikia Search) is a project to *build* a search engine, not a search engine… So the comparison to Google on day one is just mistaken. Google didn’t launch a project to build a human-powered search engine, they launched an algorithmic search engine with a clever new idea. So they didn’t have to wait for the humans to come in and start building it. We aren’t even running with a real index yet, just a placeholder index. Yeah, the search sucks today. But that’s not the point. The point is that we are building something different.”
Will it be a Google killer? Certainly not for sometime. The whole concept is that people will be driving how the search engine works. That takes time. The project is said to be based on the following four principles (from the about Wikia Search page:
Our Four Organizing Principles (TCQP) – the future of Internet Search must be based on:
- Transparency – Openness in how the systems and algorithms operate, both in the form of open source licenses and open content + APIs.
- Community – Everyone is able to contribute in some way (as individuals or entire organizations), strong social and community focus.
- Quality – Significantly improve the relevancy and accuracy of search results and the searching experience.
- Privacy – Must be protected, do not store or transmit any identifying data.”
I’ll have to be honest I’m not exactly sure how giving people the ability to edit and create entries that will be displayed when you search for something is going to make “search” better. It does sound like there is a big chance for manipulation. All the talk is about Google’s strangle hold on the search industry, and that they use ever changing algorithms to produce their results, and getting the general public involved is the way to make this better. Actually Google also has a human side to it’S results. A fact seemingly not known to many. At Google they call them Quality Raters. The Quality Raters are paid telecommuters (meaning the work from home) that spend their time rating how well the search queries match up to the results that the algorithms are producing, including whether or not someone is trying to manipulate the algorithms for their own use. So, in that way they also have human controls to improve the quality of their search.
It will be interesting to see how the quality will be controlled with Wikia Search. Although Wikepedia is smashing hit and I believe that collaboration is the wave of the future. It is true that just because something is a product of the masses, doesn’t always mean it is good. I guess time will tell…
Search: Turtle Tacos
Some of you may remember my post about Turtle Tacos – Nov. 12 2006
Saturday night or I should I say Sunday morning after 2am. I was woken up by a some maniac girl yelling something about Turtle Tacos! It seems that they are a delicacy up at Penn State. But just a warning. You will be charged extra for them….
Apparently they have recently become popular again. I have software that tells me how people find site and people have been searching for Turtle Tacos and guess what, my blog comes up at number 1! Check out the link.