Google App for iOS Gets a Speed Boost by @SouthernSEJ

The Google app for iOS is now faster according to an official announcement from the company. In addition to cutting down loading times the app is been updated with the new features that are designed to help people save time and get information more quickly. Opening the app and conducting a search will be just a bit quicker now than it was before. Google says this incremental boost in speed will save users a collective 6.5 million hours this year. For the first time Google’s accelerated mobile pages will now be surfaced in the Google app for iOS. AMP articles […]

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10 Reasons to Attend SEJ Summit by @annaleacrowe

If you're on the fence about two conferences around the same time, I’ve got the perfect solution that's the best of both worlds: SEJ Summit. Continue reading below to see why I’m obsessing over the SEJ Summit.

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A Simple Trick That Will Improve Your Outreach by 10x by @sejournal

Email outreach remains one of the most powerful ways to promote and grow your business. Improve your email outreach by 10x with the help of Ahrefs.

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How To Build Amazing Personalized Influencer Marketing Campaigns by @annaleacrowe

Brands tend to meet the influencer marketing world with a "meh." But, it offers so much more to the brand than one would think. It's so much more than...influencing.

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Report: Social Media Examiner 2016 State of Social Media Marketing

It can be easy to get caught up in the buzz of new social media marketing platforms and content types (live video ring a bell?). But what are today’s marketers implementing the most and experiencing the most success with? The answers might surprise you.

Social Media Examiner recently released their 2016 State of Social Media Marketing Industry Report which dives into the responses of over 5,000 marketers who share their top priorities, successes, failures and outlooks for social media marketing.  This post will dive into a few of the highlights that I found most interesting from this year’s report.

#1 – Not All Marketers Implementing Social Media Analyze Success & Measure ROI

Social media marketing still seems to hold a mystery for a lot of marketers. Of those surveyed in this report, only 19% strongly agree that they regularly analyze their social media activities. Additionally, only 41% say that they are able to measure the ROI for their social media activities.

In order for marketers to be effective with any aspect of their digital marketing approach, a close eye to the data is essential. By closely watching this information, marketers are better able to adapt and evolve their strategies to meet customer need.

#2 – Some Marketers Are Facing Declines in Website Traffic via Facebook

Social media can be a great source for referring traffic to a brand’s website. But just like those above that are not measuring the ROI of their social media, many aren’t sure if referral traffic from Facebook has declined or not. However, 23% have noticed a decline in traffic in the past 12 months.

#3 – Social Media Marketing is Becoming More Difficult

Social media is a quickly evolving beast. Platforms are constantly changing algorithms, releasing new features and “changing the rules”. That requires marketers to think on their feet and quickly adapt their approach at the drop of a hat. According to this survey, 40% of marketers believe that social media has become increasingly difficult in the past 12 months.

#4 – Many Marketers Are Spending Under 6 Hours a Week on Social Media

A successful social media marketing strategy requires commitment. Building an audience in general, let alone one that is engaged and interacts with your brand takes time, and an ongoing investment of both time and often budget.

However, 37% of marketers are spending a maximum of five hours per week on their social media efforts. That means, at most they are spending 1 hour a day managing their social media accounts.

Today’s customers expect swift responses from the brands they follow and interact with online which would be extremely difficult to master in only 5 hours a week.

#5 – The Top Reported Benefits of Social Media Marketing Might Surprise You

Increased exposure for the business is listed as the top benefit of social media marketing by an 89% of respondents. The other benefits that made the top of the list include:

• Increased Traffic 75%
• Developed Loyal Fans 68%
• Provided Marketplace Insight 666
• Generated Leads 66%

#6 – The Super 3 Still Reign Supreme

Even with the increasingly popular use of platforms like Snapchat and vine for brands across the globe, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are still the most commonly used social media platforms by marketers. From 2015 to 2016, both Twitter and LinkedIn faced a slight decline while Instagram gained a few points.

#7 – The Outlook for Paid Social Media

Many social networks are increasingly making it more difficult for brands to maintain the organic reach that they used to. That change has required an investment in paid social media to become more of a necessity than a luxury.

An overwhelming 87% of marketers invest their budgets in Facebook ads versus the next platforms coming in at 39% (Google ads), 18% (Twitter ads) and 17% (LinkedIn ads).

#8 – The Difference Between B2B & B2C

One of the biggest contrasts within this report is the importance of different social networks for B2B and B2C marketers. The top three social networks (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) both rank high for both types of marketers, but the order of importance is vastly different.

What Does the Future Hold for Social Media Marketing?

Next year, we may begin to see some of these responses shift as more and more marketers begin adopting the use of platforms like Snapchat and SlideShare. We cannot be certain what the future will hold for social media marketing, but we do know that marketers are finding it to be a value tool for interacting with and engaging their audience. Social media marketing is here to stay.

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Ask an SEO: Filtering Referral Spam in Google Analytics by @jennyhalasz

Jenny Halasz talks about filtering referral spam in Google Analytics in this latest column of #AskAnSEO.

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The 10 Things People Still Get Wrong About Local SEO by @neilpatel

We’re still seeing a lot of myth and incorrect information surrounding local SEO. Here are ten myths that you should be aware of.

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10 Free Tools to Make Your Content Marketing More Effective by @dantosz

Stop wasting your time on content marketing practices that don't work and start focusing on effective content marketing practices. These 10 free tools will help you do just that by helping you better create high-quality content, track your efforts, and share it with your audience.

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4 Tasty Content Marketing Recipes to Grill Up on Your Day Off

If you’re like most business professionals, you are likely enjoying today off, spending time with friends and family and celebrating the lives of those that have served our country. Memorial Day marks one of the first holiday’s of the summer that give busy professionals a chance to take an extra day to unwind and enjoy the warm summer months.

If you’re taking the time to read this on your day off, the least I can do is offer you some helpful content marketing recipes for a successful holiday BBQ. A successful meal and content marketing plan both require a full range of elements to meet the needs of your audience, whoever they may be. The four recipes below will help you get started.

#1 – Something Substantial: Content Mission

Most good BBQ’s include a protein such as a burger or steak that the grill master puts most of their energy into creating. Similarly, your content plan should center around a consistent content mission. Your content mission should describe your purpose for creating content and how you intend to use that content to help your customers solve their business problems.

Just like the difference between purchasing stew meat and filet mignon to throw on the grill, you need to invest your time in developing a content mission that will help you develop a “best answer” approach for your customers.  

Use the following recipe to develop a content mission:

1. Determine who your content mission is for.
2. Identify your message and determine how you will deliver the content to your audience.
3. Set benchmarks for your desired outcome.

#2 – Something Starchy: Content Calendar

Carbohydrates provide your body with energy and let’s face it, they’re delicious. No grill out is complete without some tasty potato salad or [insert your favorite starch here]. Sometimes it can be difficult to find a good way to plan your content appropriately, without overdoing it (just like when you find yourself facing down an enormous bread basket).

A well-developed (but flexible) content calendar will help keep you on track and aligned with the content mission that has been developed. If you need help creating a content calendar of your own, check out this awesome list from Curata.

Use the following recipe to develop a content calendar:

1. Always identify who each piece of content is for.
2. Create a consistent experience across all digital marketing channels to build confidence with your audience.
3. Do your research to ensure that content is optimized for customers and search engines.

#3 – Something Healthy: Content Measurement

In the frenzy of planning all the staples needed for grilling, a very important element is often overlooked, fruit and vegetables (no, corn is not a vegetable). To balance the fat and calories in some of the other dishes, it’s nice to accompany a grilled meal with a healthy vegetable or fruit.

Another often overlooked element of marketing programs is the importance of tying content to business objective and then measuring their impact.

Use the following recipe for content measurement:

1. Identify benchmarks and set performance goals prior to launching content campaigns or assets.
2. Utilize unique tracking urls and tracking codes to properly identify sources for conversions.
3. Review your metrics, see what is working and what is not and use that information to evolve your content strategy.

#4 – Something Unexpected: Unique Content Types

Every once in awhile, you might bring something new into the mix and find that you’re pleasantly satisfied with the outcome. For example, last week we decided to try our hand at grilling my favorite food, the artichoke. The results? Amazing!

Like the unexpected success and simplicity of a grilled artichoke, it’s important to provide your audience with something new from time to time that captures their attention. Testing new content types can help break marketers out of a content rut and create more stickiness with your audience.

Use the following recipe for developing unique content types:

1. Collect information from your audience to determine which content types resonate with them the most.
2. Go outside of your comfort zone and try something new such as video interviews, infographics, interactive content, motion graphics, live-streaming video and more.
3. Both successes and failures will teach you an incredible amount about how to delight your audience with unexpected content they are not getting from other sources.

What Are You Cooking Up Today?

These four content marketing recipes should be the basics that you need to have a successful holiday BBQ. While each marketer will add their own flair or have some secret recipes of their own, these will help you get started. Always remember that both grilling and marketing are a process that may seem frustrating at times, but often create many rewards when it comes time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

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The Pros and Cons of Twitter Automation by @mgeorgiou22

Twitter automation is a great help for small businesses and busy individuals. But it’s just a tool programmed to function a certain way. Don’t let it lull you into a false sense of security.

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SERPs Success: An #SEO Game Plan for Impatient Marketers by @IAmAaronAgius

SEO is a long-term strategy. If you're an impatient marketer, here's an SEO game plan that could lead you to SERP success.

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11 Landing Page Optimization Case Studies to Read Now

Are you really happy with the conversions you’re getting from your pay-per-click campaigns, or can you squeeze out a little more lift? Here are 11 landing page optimization case studies to get your neurons firing

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How to Tell Your Brand’s Story From the Inside Out by @highervis

A big part of telling your brand’s story is breaking it up into both internal and then external considerations. Here's how you can effectively tell yours.

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Mindy Weinstein Talks About the Changing Search Landscape on #MarketingNerds by @AkiLiboon

In this Marketing Nerds, Mindy Weinstein of Bruce Clay Inc. talks about the changing landscape of search. Download and listen now!

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Online Marketing News: 29 Content Metrics, Twitter Ditches Brevity and Hungerithms

Content Marketing Measurement: 29 Essential Metrics [Infographic] Knowing whether or not your content marketing is working is one of the biggest challenges that content marketers face. But you don't have to face that scary challenge alone. Curata has compiled 29 important metrics to help content marketers measure the success of their content marketing, and they're more than just top level. Curata New Twitter Update Coming: How Marketers Will Soon Be Able to Maximize All 140 Characters Fellow marketers, it's finally happening! Twitter is leaving brevity in the rear view. OK -- maybe not completely, you still only have 140 characters, but that count will officially no longer include images or links. The changes will be taking place over the next few months, according to the Twittersphere. There are a good amount of things that will no longer rack up your character count: Usernames, quoted tweets, photos and other media attachments. Buffer Snickers 'Hungerithm' Sets the Candy's In-Store Price Based on the Internet's Mood Is this marketing news? I certainly think so. Snickers is taking sentiment analysis, real-time marketing, and personalization to a new level. The candy bar company is integrating all of these fun new technologies, in Australia only for now, and tieing it in with their existing 'you're not you when you're hungry' messaging. The hangrier the interwebs get, the lower the price of a Snickers bar. This is an awesome example of what's yet to come for integrated marketing campaigns, get ready! Adweek Major Google Analytics and AdWords changes [@SmartInsights Alert] On May 24th, Google hosted their annual Performance Summit. There, they announced a litany of changes to both AdWords and Analytics. Notably, the aforementioned redesign of AdWords, making it a more visually engaging platform that conforms with other Google branded experiences. Other changes include expanding text ads, including expanding headlines to two, 30 character rows vs. one, 25 character row and increasing the description line to 80 characters. Smart Insights Facebook Is Shutting Down Its Desktop-Based Ad Retargeting Exchange In a continued effort to push online advertisers to their mobile-first advertising platforms, Facebook announced that it's shutting down it's desktop-based ad retargeting exchange. Mobile now accounts for a whopping 82% of the company's overall revenue, so the move seems only natural for the social media giant. Will other platforms follow suit? Adweek More must be done to educate brands on online ad rules, says ASA According to Marketing Week, "The ASA believes that despite a fall in the number of complaints about ads by the public “more needs to be done” to educate brands about their obligations when it comes to online advertising.Figures published today (26 May) by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) show that the number of online ads investigated by the body is more than double the total for TV – the second most complained about medium. Some 8,633 online ads were subject to investigations, while the number for TV ads was 3,920." The ASA has admitted that the regulatory body needs to do more to ensure that brands understand their obligations under the CAP Code, regardless of medium. Marketing Week Twitter Disbands Commerce Team, Ceases Product Development On “Buy” Button The team that's responsible for Twitter's 'buy' button is reportedly disbanded. BuzzFeed reported A number of members of Twitter’s roughly 25-person commerce team have left the company, and those who remain now largely work on two separate product teams: customer service and dynamic product ads. Customer service may one day include a commerce element (think: a buy button inserted by a company into a direct message), but Twitter has not announced any such plans to date." BuzzFeed What were your top online marketing news stories this week? Have something to add? A funny joke for me to butcher in next week's YouTube video? Sent it my way on Twitter @Tiffani_Allen or @toprank! Curious about my co-anchor Josh? Visit him @NiteWrites. I'll be back next week with more online marketing news!

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Reddit Breaks Up With Imgur, Releases Its Own Image Uploading Tool by @SouthernSEJ

This week Reddit announced it will be moving away from its integration with Imgur and introduce its own image uploading tool. At first the beta feature will only be available to select communities/sub-Reddits. “Today, we are partnering with mods to launch native image hosting in beta to 16 default communities across Reddit, followed by 50 more next week. In this iteration, native image hosting will support single image and gif uploads” Reddit’s new tool is actually slightly less capable than Imgur. The new tool allows you to upload images up to 20 MB in size, and GIFs up to 100 […]

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New Google Test: Third Party Reviews in Search Results by @SouthernSEJ

Google has been spotted conducting another one of its tests in the search results; and this one involves third-party review sites Traditionally Google has always shown its own reviews when searching for a location, which either come from Google Maps or Google+. In fact, the search giant has been often criticized for taking visibility away from third-party review sites in favor of its own properties. With this latest test, reviews from third-party sites like Booking.com and Priceline.com are shown underneath the Google Business listing when conducting a search. Google reviews are still being shown, but underneath that section is a […]

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11 Ways to Accelerate Page Load Time Before Your Prospects Bounce by @bradleygsmith

If pages aren’t loading, ain’t nobody converting. Here’s how you can fix your site's page load time.

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The Silent Landing Page Conversion Killer by @PeppersWrite

Don’t stand by and watch your landing page conversions get murdered by excess copy.

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How to Use Customer Journey Mapping to Shape Your Content Strategy by @missanna_f

While every organisation’s customers will have a different journey, and mapping it out can be tricky, these familiar stages should help guide your content strategy in the right direction.

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7 Infographics Every Digital Marketer Needs to See

I love infographics as a marketing tool, don’t you? They can convey a huge amount of information in a compact form. It’s an easy way to hit the highlights of your chosen topic without losing the reader to text fatigue. 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, so it makes sense that infographics are more effective than text alone.

Where did I get that 90% stat? An infographic, of course!

Because as much as I enjoy using infographics as a marketing tool, I enjoy reading them even more. We marketers have brains that operate the same way as anyone else (well, maybe we’re more creative and a tad bit more clever). So we get the same value out of good infographic.

There is no shortage of visually impressive, information-packed infographics by marketers, for marketers. Here are just a few I’ve seen in the past month. Read on to be infotained by infographics on content, SEO, blogging, and…er…infographics.

7 Must-See Infographics by Marketers, for Marketers

#1 – Portrait of a Content Marketer: More than a Marketer

Don’t worry; there are plenty of educational infographics on this list. But let’s start with a lighter one, because this is one of my new favorites. It’s the rare beast that is the inspirational infographic. It may be light on facts and figures, but it’s heavy on the emotional appeal. The retro children’s book illustrations are spot on, too.

#2 – What Makes Content Compelling? An Analysis of 3 Top-Performing Articles

In this infographic, The smarties at Fractl break down the components of a diverse mix of articles to find the common strands that lead to content success. They identify six basic building blocks of an article that gets shared (see above) and show how each article hits each one. The infographic shows how these three articles earned 144,000 social media shares between them. I like that the “building block” idea isn’t completely proscriptive. It doesn’t offer a formula to follow to generate clickbait; instead, the infographic shows how truly diverse good storytelling can be.

#3 – Seven Common Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

This graphic from WhoIsHostingThis? proves that you can fit a lot of content into an infographic without it feeling too cluttered. This is practically a blog post, but it still packs in plenty of compelling visual content. The ‘cutting through the hype’ formula works well here, too. Even a seasoned content marketer will get some of their conventional wisdom turned upside down.

#4 – The Mixology of Content Marketing

UK agency JBH presents this beautiful marriage of two of my passions in life. Margarita. Martini. Marketing. It can’t be a coincidence, can it? Marketers will find plenty of recipes for successful content here, along with a garnish of content marketing stats. For example, video will be responsible for 79% of all consumer web traffic by 2018. Time to start animating those infographics…

#5 – The Potential of Social Media for B2B in 2016

The swinging retro design of this piece helps break up the stat-heavy content. There is simply a ton of researched information on display here, from social media advertising spend to the true number of active users on the major platforms. My favorite stat: When a brand is followed on Twitter, 72% of the followers are likely to make a future purchase from that brand.

#6 – The Pros and Cons of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Other Social Networks

Compared to the previous entry, the design on this one is almost demure–it certainly isn’t out to dazzle with eye-popping color or adventurous layout. But it excels at presenting valuable information in an easily digestible way. I was surprised to see that Pinterest only has 100 million active users–given my Facebook feed, it seems like a lot more.

#7 – The Science Behind Infographics

What better way to wrap up an infographic post than with an infographic about infographics? This graphic from Siege Media hits everything from colors to word count to what types of industries do best with infographics on each social media platform. The best part: the infographic itself demonstrates the results of Siege Media’s study; it’s the average size and wordcount that their research uncovered.

Infographics are a valuable tool for marketers, whether we’re creating them or consuming them. I hope these seven examples inspire you to make great visual content of your own.

What’s your favorite marketing infographic? Let me know in the comments.

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New Search Engine Omnity Said to Be “Smarter Than Google” by @SouthernSEJ

The Washington Post reports that a new search engine called Omnity is on the way, which is targeted at researchers and students. Not only is it being recognized for unique features that Google doesn’t offer, many publications are calling it “smarter than Google”. Reports indicate that Omnity separates itself from the pack by serving up results which best match the search term entered in. There’s also the added capability of indicating how those results relate to one another. If you’re researching a subject you know little about, for example, you can type it in as a search term and immediately […]

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Study Shows Positive Correlation Between Traffic and Referring Domains by @SouthernSEJ

A new study conducted by SimilarWeb and Majestic concludes that there is a positive correlation between a website’s traffic and the number of referring domains pointing to that website. The study analyzed 500,000 backlinks from 100,000 of the top sites on the web to find a correlation from the tops sites and their associated backlinks. The traffic driven to these sites was broken down into the following categories: Overall traffic Organic search traffic PPC traffic Referrals traffic Social Media traffic IP Addresses The websites assessed in the study were also broken down into similar categories, analyzing the top 100,000 websites […]

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Why AdWords’ Smart Goals are Pretty Cool for Certain Advertisers by @LarryKim

AdWords unleashed an easier way for the small business to machete its way through the jungle of code typically required to track paid search performance, and it’s called “smart goals.”

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The 7 Most Important Questions to Ask of Your SEO Data by @TimothyCarter

We live in a glorious age of data. But objective data alone can’t give you meaningful takeaways and conclusions. Here are questions to ask of your SEO data.

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Next #SEJThinkTank: Streamlining the Content Creation Process by @dantosz

Streamlining the content creation process by getting and staying organized and automating parts of the process where appropriate make it easier to consistently create content people will actually want to read and engage with. Join us for a free webinar on June 1st, 2016.

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