When it comes to SEO, it all starts with keyword research.
Before you kick off a link-building campaign or invest in creating quality content, you need to understand where the volume is, how competitive terms are, and the intent behind those queries.
But what does an effective keyword research strategy look like?
There are few things worse as a marketer than putting a ton of time and effort into your email campaigns only to see them perform poorly.
While the usual suspects of content, design, and campaign strategy make a difference, none of that matters unless your email actually makes it to your subscriber’s inbox.
Did you know that Amazon has surpassed Google as the go-to search platform for shoppers looking for products?
This may come as a surprise to many readers. (I’ve certainly never heard anyone use “Amazon” as a verb.) Yet the data backs this up.
When customers have a specific product in mind, more turn to Amazon search than Google.
If you’re porting over your SEO “best practices” from on-site product pages to Amazon product pages, you’ll struggle. This post covers the key differences to help you thrive on both platforms.
You turn up the volume of your marketing efforts to meet quarterly KPIs—sending out more posts, emails, and ads. But instead of increasing leads, you see diminishing returns. What’s going on?
Customer-focused content marketing can help you stand out from the din of competitor marketing and connect with audiences. But knowing your marketing needs to be customer-focused is one thing; producing it is another.
This post will help you understand how customer-centric brands can build a content strategy that speaks directly about what users care about.
Google is the biggest search engine ad platform in the world. But Microsoft Advertising has potential advantages, including lower CPCs and less competition on Bing.
Think it’s tough to earn links or shares for your content? Try earning money.
Click fraud first came to light in 2005, when some pay-per-click ads started to receive clicks by users with a malicious intent. Back then, several major cases were taken to court.
However, it continues to poison marketing campaigns—and find its way into more and more courtrooms. Juniper Research estimates that click fraud cost advertisers $42 billion in 2019.
In a time when advertising budgets are being cut and many businesses are facing economic uncertainty, putting every ad dollar to good use goes a long way.
Advertorials are long-form paid ads, presented as informative articles—hence the name, a blend of “advertisement” and “editorial.”
In past print and current online versions, they match the appearance, perception, and function of the media outlet where they’re hosted, so they don’t really look like ads.
Executed well, advertorials provide value to the target audience while also selling a product or service. They’re a content marketing play that borrows the credibility of the site on which they’re published (if they’re “native ads”) or promoted (if they live on other sites).
Enterprise SEO has been my topic of choice for extracurricular “thought leadership” over the years. Last year, I gave a presentation on how we generated 40% year-over-year organic revenue growth by focusing on out executing the competition, not outsmarting them.
While my presentation focused on the in-house side of enterprise SEO, I’ve also experienced (and written about) getting things done—or trying to get things done—at an agency. SEO strategies for Fortune 500 brands often take 12+ months to see the light of day or, worse, never do.
Eventually, I got tired of that lack of action, which led me in-house. In two-and-a-half years leading SEO initiatives at Qualtrics, I’ve learned that most companies don’t have a strategy problem—they have an execution problem.
If I told you that a post earned 30 links and 100 shares, how would you respond?
“Wow, must’ve been amazing!”
“Not bad.”
“Total flop!”
Your gut reaction says more about the site you’re used to working on than it does about my hypothetical example.
Indeed, the size and power of a site—not necessarily the value of the content—can have the greatest influence on results. That matters, especially when it comes to content research.