SEO News

Halloween in the digital age involves a significant amount of searching until the right costume is picked. So what can we learn from this year’s searches? Online search is the most popular way to discover a Halloween costume nowadays, as according to National Retail Federation, 35% of adults rely on searching to find their costumes. Bing examined the trends on the searches from September to mid-October and it found that adults are actually more interested in performing such searches, compared to teens. 32% of the searches were made from people aged 35-49 and 28% of them were made from people aged 50-64. This is probably the reason why 72% of the searches occurred…

For companies serving either B2B or B2C audiences, search engine optimization continues to be a priority for driving new traffic. There are many, many articles suggesting the right tactics to help you deliver that traffic. But within this piece, I want to take a step back and offer a few key components to think through before you even begin the optimization process. Understand your audience The first of these preparatory steps is to understand your audience. If your business has not taken the time to develop personas, get started now. Personas are a set of representative profiles that communicate the important behaviors, goals, wants, needs and frustrations of …

President Obama is trouncing Romney with 53 percent of total shares � 69 percent of the ads shared on blogs, 86 percent of the ads shared on Twitter, and 51 percent of the ads shared on Facebook, according to Unruly's 2012 Election Tracker. Source: Search Engine Watch

With its latest offer, Google has effectively settled the three year probe and has dodged a potential $5 billion fine. While the European Commission has accepted the concessions, they must first be accepted by the complainants, including Microsoft. Source: Search Engine Watch

Do you have trouble managing an ever-changing product inventory through paid search? Meet inventory-aware campaigns. This post walks you through how to use your existing data feed to power these granular, dynamic campaigns in DoubleClick Search. Source: Search Engine Watch

Welcome to our weekly round-up of all the latest news and research from the world of search marketing and beyond. This week, we’ve got key trends in content marketing for 2017; why social media is the preferred channel for product launches; and how to use an Exact Match Domain (EMD) without being penalised for spam by Google. And in probably unsurprising news, John Lewis’ annual heartwarming Christmas ad is this year’s best performing yet. The eight most important content marketing trends in 2017 It’s December already, and you know what that means – every publication you follow will be winding down for the end of the year by reviewing the highlights of 2016, while …

It’s around this time that we resolve to do things just a little bit better than the year before. By mid-January, most of these resolutions have fallen to the wayside as they are too hard to consistently do. Often, the smartest resolutions aren’t those major changes, but small tweaks, replacing bad habits with good and introducing new ways of thinking about our routines. Once the holiday rush is over and sites are no longer on lockdown, its time to focus on the little things adjustments, but together can produce measurable local SEO gains. Here’s how to get started: 1. Adapt Your SEO Strategy for Voice Search Earlier this year, we learned that an estimated …

Sometimes we get stuck. Our ad tweaks all start looking the same. We obsess over punctuation rather than significant differences in messaging. If you've tried everything without making progress, here's one way you can escape the mental quagmire. Source: Search Engine Watch

Welcome to our weekly round-up of all the latest news and research from the world of search marketing and beyond. This week, Google has been spotted testing a new user ratings feature in film and television search results; the National Football League has rowed back its heavy-handed social media policy; and a new report has revealed the distance that still remains between the marketing and IT sides of a business in the digital age. Google tests user ratings for films and TV shows Google was spotted testing a new user rating feature in its search results for films and TV shows with a small sample of users this week. Searchers in Google’s test sample found ‘Like’ and…

Your initial instinct may be to gloss over the battle of Net Neutrality. However, proposed rules could directly impact the distribution of content, as well as the effectiveness of online advertising by businesses and brands unable to "pay to play." Source: Search Engine Watch

Covario released its quarterly report that looks at global paid search spend. Mobile online advertising saw a 98 percent increase in spend year-over-year (YoY) and 6 percent increase quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) globally. Overall, spend was up 21 percent Yo Source: Search Engine Watch

Announcements coming from Marin in the past week showcase support for Google Shopping campaigns in its advertising platform, and product inventory feed management through an integration of Productsup. Source: Search Engine Watch

Newsletters are an amazing marketing tool, but building a large newsletter audience can be tough. You can run Twitter lead gen cards for free. Just don't promote it, and you never have to pay a dime. Here's how you do it. Source: Search Engine Watch

LinkedIn is a great platform for publishing articles, but you need to have a strategy and consider what types of content work best for the people reading articles on LinkedIn. Here's how to write articles that will succeed on LinkedIn. Source: Search Engine Watch

Yes, you can make end users and search engines happy at the same time. Here's how to implement a powerful combo of SEO and usability to conquer search ranking challenges such as getting more content above the fold, video, PDFs, and disclaimers. Source: Search Engine Watch

There’s been an awkward separation between UX and SEO in previous years, and it’s always difficult to move past an ‘us and them’ mentality. But if your business is going to be on track for success, then both need to be working in harmony. It is the duty of SEOs to stay perpetually up to date with how Google algorithms work so be sure you listen to their opinions, even if they’re talking design issues. Thankfully, SEO and UX are gradually merging into the same thing, which is good news for everyone. Visitors receive a better experience, businesses have a guide on how to satisfy their customer needs (assuming they research how the algorithm works) and UX designers …

Google has announced the ability for webmasters to now track indexed URLs for each protocol - HTTP and HTTPS - as well as for verified subdirectories. The change will make it easier for site owners to monitor different sections of their website. Source: Search Engine Watch

Welcome to our weekly round-up of all the latest news and research from around the world of search marketing and beyond. This week we have a couple of potential upheavals to Google SERPs and the core algorithm, as well as updates to Knowledge Panel and a warning on spammy widgets. Google experiments with new desktop SERP layout As I reported earlier this week, in among Google’s 1,000s of minor experiments a few users were served with a rather fundamental change: a new desktop SERP layout featuring mobile-style cards. The number of results on the card-based SERP is exactly the same as the ’standard’ layout and the snippet width is significantly longer (roughl…

Welcome to the years of paid links. link bait, Caffeine, Google bombs, and page speed as a ranking factor. By this point, Google's Matt Cutts had plenty important things to teach us all about the evolving landscape of search and SEO. Source: Search Engine Watch

National Geographic is known for its impressive visual content. How did it use it though to create a highly successful social presence? There are not many brands that can explain the power of visual storytelling as well as National Geographic, a media brand with a history of 128 years in science and photography that uses all its resources to create a compelling social presence. Nadine Heggie, Vice President of Global Partnerships for National Geographic Partners Europe & Africa, offered an insight during Social Media Week on how the brand dominates social media with the use of storytelling and the power of the community. National Geographic is already rea…