The New Year is a great time to improve yourself both personally and professionally, break out of your comfort zone, experiment with new ideas, and take on new challenges. Here is a list of New Year’s resolutions that could help you enhance your business in 2017.
The post 6 New Year’s Resolutions for the Modern Day Marketer by @seocompanymiami appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
In this blog post, you will discover the best websites for finding the most relevant, fresh, and on-point GIFs and memes.
The post Top 16 Websites for Finding Perfect GIFs and Memes by @KatyaBovykina appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
JSON-LD implementation is a way of adding structured data markup and is much easier than it sounds. Learn more about implementing JSON-LD in this post.
The post A Complete Guide to JSON-LD by @@natalieannhoben appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Infographic: Google Assistant vs. Siri: Which is the Best Smartphone AI?
Artificial Intelligence is not a thing of the future, it has become something that we rely on daily. Today’s smartphones are equipped with the latest in personal assistants, but they are not all created equal. See which one has the features that you’re looking for. Search Engine Journal
Periscope Launches Live 360 Video Broadcasting
Twitter’s Periscope is another in a long line of social networks enabling 360 video on their platform. As of today, everyone can view 360 videos but only a select group of partners can publish. What could this mean for your video marketing strategy in 2017? Marketing Land
Amazon Begins Testing Product Listing Ads on Adwords
Google’s Product Search used to be based on organic results. Now it is entirely a pay-to-play advertising tactic. Since Google made the switch in 2012, Amazon has been nowhere to be found. Until now. See how Amazon’s re-entry into PLA could impact other businesses. Search Engine Land
How Tolerant Are Online Video Viewers of Buffering & Ads?
Over 75% of adults in the US and UK watch videos weekly. Not surprisingly, Millennials make up a large share of these viewers. A recent report from MarketingCharts found that younger viewers tend to be more open to ads in online video than other adults. Read on to find out what else the study uncovered. MarketingCharts
Digital Ad Market Soars 20% in Q3, Approaches $18 Billion
Digital ad spend in Q3 of 2016 marks the highest spend in Q3 in history with just over $17 billion. This spend is a 20% increase from Q3 of 2016. As the online landscape becomes increasingly competitive, augmenting organic activity with paid will become a necessity. MediaPost
Domino’s Made A ‘Wipeable’ Adult Onsie
Pizza chain giant Domino’s wanted to help their consumers prepare for a day of recovery after the new year holiday. To help ease the pain, they developed a wipeable onsie that can withstand even the greasiest piece of pizza. Additionally, Domino’s is donating all proceeds from the sales of the onsies to charities such as the Teenage Cancer Trust. AdWeek
Backlash Erupts After Hunt’s Marketing Blunder
Over the past few years health conscious consumers have begun rejecting products with genetically modified organisms or GMOs. To appeal to this audience, Hunt released a series of messages and videos claiming “You won’t find a single genetically modified tomato among our vines”. The problem? No tomatoes (from any vine) contain GMOs. This blunder has caused major backlash for the ketchup king. Forbes
Thank you to each of our readers (and watchers) that have tuned in each week for our online marketing news round up. We hope you all have a great new year and we can’t wait to see you again in 2017!
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. | Online Marketing News: Siri vs. Google Assistant, Periscope 360 Video & Amazon Tests Product Listing Ads | http://www.toprankblog.com
The post Online Marketing News: Siri vs. Google Assistant, Periscope 360 Video & Amazon Tests Product Listing Ads appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Sales and marketing often have a contentious relationship. But by using search data to better understand what the customer is actually looking for, they are able to not only better serve their user base, but also create a cohesive tone of brand mentioning. Erin Robbins of Ginzametrics talks with SEJ Executive Editor Kelsey Jones about why sales and marketing should actually work together, and how the personal relationship building of sales is something that could serve digital marketing departments better.
The post Erin Robbins on How Sales and Marketing Can Use Search Data to Communicate Better [PODCAST] appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google has a new mobile interface for recipe search results, featuring recipe suggestions and newly designed recipe cards.
The post Google Adds Recipe Suggestions to Mobile Search Results by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Everybody makes mistakes, and digital marketers are no exception, especially when it comes to SEO. Read on to learn five silly but harmful mistakes that can ruin your SEO campaign and badly hurt your digital marketing efforts.
The post 5 Silly SEO Mistakes That Even Professional Marketers Make by @grybniak appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Video marketing is nothing new but it'll have explosive growth in 2017 as a form of content marketing. Make sure you have these tools in your arsenal to be prepared for such.
The post How to Get Into Video in 2017 by @JordanKasteler appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
In the past, the SEO battle was focused on either black hat, or white hat tactics. Black hat SEO was considered extremely aggressive and didn’t typically play by the rules of search engines. White hat SEO tactics on the other hand were typically closely aligned with search engine guidelines.
Today’s world of SEO looks much different (and it’s about time). Instead of hyper focusing only on keywords or search engine needs, smart marketers are concentrating first and foremost on the needs of users. User experience as it relates to mobile accessibility, content structure and user intent on search engines have become the new norm.
Content is the reason search began in the first place. – Lee Odden
As many of you know, TopRank Marketing’s history is deeply rooted in SEO. Over the years, we’ve continued to incorporate an optimized approach to digital marketing by implementing integrated digital marketing programs that always follow SEO best practices.
But what does the future of SEO hold, is there more? We tapped into the minds of some great marketers to provide their predictions of what SEO will look like in 2017.
Senior Search Marketer, Dell
@dougwalkerseo
Companies will experience big wins by creating relevant and highly useful content. @dougwalkerseo
Click To Tweet
While I think it will be important to be up to speed with AMP and other important technologies, with continued content saturation, I think we’ll see even bigger wins by companies who can remain focused on the effort to:
1) Create stand-out content, completely relevant and highly useful to their target audience.
2) Successfully promote that content to drive consistent engagement in the form of links, social shares, news, and other buzz.
Senior Manager, Digital Media – Target Corp
@Troyville
In 2017, RankBrain will factor in more user intent signals than ever before. @Troyville
Click To Tweet
We’re already seeing RankBrain begin to ‘take over’ and factor in more user intent signals than ever before. I think that will continue to happen and increase in 2017 (specifically, time on site, bounce rates, etc.). I think CTR from SERPs will be a bigger factor in re-ranking URLs as people develop more affinity for the brands they like and click on them when they see them; regardless if they are in pos. #1 or #9.
I think people will try to optimize for voice searches because, well voice is here. I think links will still be important. I don’t care what article you read that says they are dying, they aren’t. I think social sentiment around brands, hashtags, keyword association (neighbors) across the web will help sort results.
If social platforms ever work together with Google, I could see platform specific searches influence rank on Google too.
SEO Analyst, TopRank Marketing
@KCotch
SEO experts need to focus on the mobile user moving forward into 2017. @KCotch
Click To Tweet
The most significant change for SEO in 2017 will be the importance of the mobile-first index for Google. Many sites are ready for a mobile-first index but unfortunately many others are not. Google is continuing its focus on mobile, and it has been increasingly important to optimize for mobile users. SEO experts need to focus on the mobile user moving forward in 2017 in terms of metadata and user experience.
News Writer, Search Engine Journal
@DannyNMIGoodwin
In 2017, pay attention to how much engagement your brand or business is generating. @DannyNMIGoodwin
Click To Tweet
With the rise of Google RankBrain, AI and machine learning are becoming incredibly important to think about for marketers and SEOs who want to capture valuable search visibility and be found at key moments of the customer journey.
What do these types of algorithms reward? Engagement – how many searchers click on your result and how long they stick around on your website. While these aren’t the only signals Google looks at to determine the quality of its search results (and where your site should rank for specific queries), it is definitely important.
In 2017, pay attention to how much engagement your brand or business is generating. Specifically: organic search CTR and time on site.
Even if improving your organic CTR and time-on-site doesn’t directly impact your rankings, it will still bring in more traffic that sticks around longer (and is more likely to convert). Write great titles that make searchers click – and reward searchers for their click by providing awesome, relevant content to match.
Each of these experts shared great advice about different tactics that they predict will rule 2017. You’ll notice that the core message behind each of these predictions is the same: put people first.
By focusing on creating a great user experience and understanding what it is that your users want, you’ll start 2017 off on the right foot!
Disclosure: Dell is a TopRank Marketing client.
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. | The Future of Influencer Marketing: Top Predictions for 2017 | http://www.toprankblog.com
The post The Future of Influencer Marketing: Top Predictions for 2017 appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Google Assistant vs. Siri - is one smartphone AI better than the other? We'll leave that for you to decide with this infographic.
The post Google Assistant vs. Siri: Which is the Best Smartphone AI? [INFOGRAPHIC] by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google claimed 5 spots in the list of top 10 downloaded apps of 2016 in latest Nielsen report.
The post Google Has 5 of the Top 10 Apps in 2016, According to Nielsen Rankings [REPORT] by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Checking your brands' common misspellings, abbreviations, and misused hashtags from users can lead to be customer service and brand sentiment gains!
The post How to Capitalize on Social Media User Mistakes by @wonderwall7 appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google is going to prioritize mobile in 2017. And it means that digital marketers and SEO professionals need to seriously consider implementing Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on their sites. But does it make any sense? Read on to learn more!
The post Do I Need AMP? by @grybniak appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Gather around, children, and let me tell you a story of Facebook advertising in the long-forgotten year of 2012. In that gilded age, whenever your page posted an update, up to 20% of your followers would see it in their feeds organically.
It was a simpler time. A gentler time. And a time when Facebook took in a lot less revenue from advertisers.
Then in 2016, organic reach fell off the cliff (Or was it pushed?), sinking to as low as 2% of a page’s followers.
The moral of the story is: If you want to reach a sizable audience on Facebook now, you’re going to have to pay. But as our friends (and clients) over at LinkedIn Marketing say, “Organic is good. Paid is better.”
Why settle for the audience that happens to wander by? Why settle for the audience Facebook thinks wants to hear from you? With a little investment, you can bring in an audience that is perfect for your offer. And you can keep refining your targeting over time to get even more out of your budget.
Here’s how to get the most out of your sponsored content on Facebook.
Most people who use Facebook entrust the site with an astonishing array of personal information. I’m not talking names, addresses or phone numbers (though plenty of people surrender that info as well)). We’re talking what businesses they frequent, what public figures they admire, what pop culture they like, and more. As a marketer, all of that information is at your fingertips.
You can start to build your targeted segment based on demographics like age, occupation, and education. Then take it to the next level with interest and behavior-based filters.
Say you’re selling a self-help book. You might pick an audience that also likes Tony Robbins and has visited other self-help websites, for example. That means filtering by Interest (pages and categories people have liked on Facebook) and by Behavior (actions taken on and off Facebook). Here’s an example of what Behaviors look like in Facebook Ads Manager:
Once you have defined your audience, it’s time to create a page that will compel a click. This is the landing page your ad will lead to—it needs to close the deal for people who already clicked from Facebook.
Start with an asset that is worth trading some contact information for. Offer real data-based, demand-based, substantial best answer content. Then set up your landing page with:
You can either design your landing page or your ad first. Whichever order you do it in, your landing page should look as much like your ad (or vice versa) as possible. Use the same fonts, same verbiage, same image. There should be no doubt in your customer’s mind that they’ve come to the right place when they click through.
Be sure to follow Facebook’s advertising policies, and to keep your copy short and to the point. Research shows that posts with 80 characters or fewer get far more engagement than wordier posts. Up to 66% more engagement, in fact. So be brief!
It’s important to create a few versions of the ad for A/B testing. Test variations in the headline, copy, and image.
In order for you to track the effectiveness of your ad, Facebook needs to know what happens to visitors after they leave Facebook to visit your site. Adding a Facebook Pixel to your pages makes that possible. It’s a little piece of code that tracks behavior of traffic from your ads to pages you specify, making it easy to attribute conversions and retarget ads (more on that later).
Once you create the pixel and add it to your pages, you can create event code to put on a specific page. Place the code on your thank you page (after the visitor has filled out our lead form) and you can use it to track conversions:
Here’s Facebook’s guide to creating a conversion in the Ads Manager.
Always run a few variants of your ad at the same time, so you have data to evaluate performance. In addition to testing variations on the ad copy and visual, test variant audiences. Take advantage of the thousands of targeting options to try a few different sets and see what hits. You can always turn off the underperformers and focus your budget on what works.
As you run your campaigns, keep a close eye on your analytics. Facebook’s Ads Manager has some pretty robust reporting abilities, especially with your pixel and conversion properly configured:
You will be able to see your CTR, break down the clicks by demographic, and see your cost per click (CPC) at a glance. Use all this information to refine your campaigns—switch off the ones that aren’t performing and try new variants, while boosting the variants that perform the best.
Not everyone who clicks through is going to complete your conversion goal, of course. That’s why retargeting is so important. Retargeting means making a custom audience on Facebook of people who have visited your website (tracked by your pixel), and using that data to serve ads to them again until they convert.
For extra bonus points—by which I mean, a larger relevant audience and more conversions—select the “lookalike audience” option for your retargeting. In addition to traffic that has visited your site, Facebook’s algorithms will serve the ad to people with similar demographics and interests to your website traffic.
Even with the most compelling content, it’s hard to get organic reach on Facebook. Of course, any traffic is better than none—and if the content’s good, it has a chance of getting shared and amplified over time. So don’t discount organic entirely. But it’s definitely time to start thinking of Facebook primarily as a paid platform, and to take full advantage of its potential.
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. | Facebook Advertising: How to Get More for Your Budget | http://www.toprankblog.com
The post Facebook Advertising: How to Get More for Your Budget appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Google has cautioned site owners that, at the end of January 2017, Chrome will mark sites without HTTPS as non-secure if they collect sensitive information.
The post HTTPS Required for Collecting Sensitive Information in Chrome as of January 2017 by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
There is a new negative SEO tactic going around which involves photos being maliciously inserted into Google My Business listings.
The post Watch Out for Malicious Images in Google My Business Listings by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
360-degree photos and videos make viewing media on websites or social networks. Here's some ideas on how to use it and what's coming in 2017.
The post How to Use 360-Degree Photos and Video in Social Media Marketing by @wonderwall7 appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Managing and optimizing PPC campaigns can be a daunting task. Learn the different ways to optimize paid search campaigns and which might be most important to your number one goal.
The post 12 Ways to Optimize a Paid Search Campaign – and What Matters Most by @PPCJoeC appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Using retargeting, or remarketing campaigns, to reach targeted audiences with ads when they’re online can improve lead generation efforts. Here is how to use display remarketing across channels and audiences in order to get the best possible results.
The post A Complete Guide to Cross-Channel Remarketing Campaigns by @tamweintraub appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Today, most online searches happen on mobile devices, not desktop computers. The advancements in technology and the ability to always being connected has led the charge for users to consume more information via mobile devices. Since most searches now happen on mobile devices, Google is making the move to go all-in on mobile. Google claims that their algorithms will eventually primarily use a mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages over a desktop version.
Google recently announced that they are switching the way that they index websites. Historically, Google has indexed websites based off of desktop sites. Now, Google will be using a mobile first index that will probably alter the results for desktop searches. Google has always encouraged webmasters to focus on mobile users and this index switch solidifies the importance of mobile optimization.
If you have a website that shows different content on mobile and desktop then you may want to consider making updates to your website. The biggest updates you should make is to:
In the article, Google mentioned that you do not need to change anything if you have a responsive site or a dynamic serving site where the primary content and markup is equivalent across your mobile and desktop sites. Also, Google states, “If you only have a desktop site, we’ll continue to index your desktop site just fine, even if we’re using a mobile user agent to view your site.” With Google moving all-in on mobile, it is more important now to focus on your mobile strategy.
One of the most important elements of mobile SEO is conducting keyword research and creating content for mobile users. Often, organizations fail at thinking of the mobile user when designing a page or drafting content. It is important to think through all the types of searches your audience will conduct on any type of device. Mobile search queries typically include more conversational-based queries that are related to voice searches. Also include content that users will want to consume on their mobile devices.
When optimizing for mobile devices, make sure to take in account the lack of search engine result page (SERP) real estate. The amount of real estate on a mobile SERP is much smaller than desktop or tablet devices (as you can see below) so try to be concise within the title tags and other metadata. Besides optimizing the metadata and content, consider adding schema markup to the page to help show rich snippets on the mobile SERPs to gain more visibility.
Another tactic to consider when optimizing for mobile devices is the pagespeed. Google has continued to put an emphasis on pagespeed especially for mobile devices over the last couple years. A slow loading mobile page provides a low-quality user experience, which can cost websites many valuable customers.
Another best practice for mobile SEO is to avoid intrusive pop ups or interstitials. Google stated in an article, “To improve the mobile search experience, after January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly.” As frustrating as popups can be on mobile sites, there are research studies that show how effective they can be for gaining miro-conversions. If you choose to use popups on your mobile site make sure that it does not take up the majority of the content or is difficult to close by January 10, 2017. Below are examples of interstitials that make content less accessible that Google provided within the article.
Another design aspect for mobile devices other than popups or interstitials is to make sure all elements are easy to click on. The layout should be thought through to avoid accidental clicks or any issue with scrolling through a page.
There are three main techniques you can serve a mobile site to users. Those three ways include responsive design, dynamic serving, and separate URLs. Each technique can provide a solid user experience for different reasons. Google does a great job explaining the differences of each technique.
Another technical perspective to consider for mobile devices is to avoid using Flash elements. Find other means to develop interactive elements so that users can use them on all types of devices. Another technical perspective is to not block CSS, JavaScript, or images from Googlebot. Googlebot wants to crawl those elements on the page so it can help elevate it.
Overall, it is important to make sure your mobile site is optimized and provides the best user experience possible. Make sure to update your mobile site, if possible, as Google continues to experiment the updated mobile first index. If you currently do not have a mobile site, then you might want to begin thinking about developing one. There isn’t a sudden rush to complete, but an optimize mobile site can help increase your ROI for your online marketing channels.
Out of curiosity, how many of you read this post on a mobile device?
If you have questions about your mobile site or SEO strategy, contact TopRank Marketing to get your mobile SEO audit.
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. | Mobile SEO in 2017: What You Need to Know to Prepare for the Upcoming Year | http://www.toprankblog.com
The post Mobile SEO in 2017: What You Need to Know to Prepare for the Upcoming Year appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Simply put, CRO is the practice of testing web pages to encourage visitors to take actions that drive value; uCRO is the practice of testing web pages to encourage visitors to *not* take actions which decrease profitability.
The post How to Increase Profits Using uCRO by @davidvmc appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
It can be challenging to maintain high performance and stay competitive without a constant pulse on the Google ad platform. Here are some next-level tactics that can help supercharge underperforming PPC campaigns.
The post 4 Tactics to Supercharge Your PPC Campaigns by @HollystarPR appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
In today’s digital world, marketers know that creating quality content is key to informing, engaging and inspiring action, as well as building authority and rapport with their audiences. And oftentimes that means creating original pieces and assets that tap into their audience’s interests, address pain points and answer burning questions.
But let’s face it: marketers are busy—and creating quality, original pieces that get results and position your brand as having the best answer is incredibly time intensive.
However, there is one tactic that can come to the rescue: content curation.
Simply put, content curation is all about finding, gathering and sharing the best and most relevant content the web has to offer on a specific topic that your audience cares about.
First off, you’re likely already doing it in some capacity. According to Curata, more than 83% of marketers curate and share content from third party sources with their customers or prospects.
Secondly, content curation can add value, quality and credibility to your content marketing efforts and your brand. Curata also reports that over 50% of marketers say content curation has increased their brand visibility, thought leadership, SEO, web traffic and buyer engagement, and 41% of marketers say the number of quality or sales-ready leads increased, too.
Finally, as previously mentioned, content creation allows you to create quality, compelling content in less time. As TopRank Marketing’s CEO Lee Odden wrote in his book Optimize:
“Pure creation is demanding. Pure automation doesn’t engage. Curating content can provide the best of both.”
Whether you’re thinking about adding content curation to your tactical mix or looking for ideas to boost the quality of your curation efforts, below we offer some best practices, tips, tool suggestions and some examples of how brands are doing it.
Remember that content curation is all about finding and sharing the best of the best content that’s out there, so take time to find and document credible, quality sources that you can consistently pull from. This will not only ensure you’re sharing the best stuff, but it’ll also increase your efficiency.
Wondering where to look? Here are some ideas to get you started:
As another tip, consider conducting your own poll or survey to collect insights that can be rolled into other pieces of content.
“Content curation is all about finding and sharing the best of the best content.”
Click To Tweet
Stay focused on just a handful of different topics and themes that are relevant to your audience. This will ensure that your curated content resonates and show that your brand or company has is knowledgeable and dialed in on those subjects.
As for the type of content you should be looking out for, here are some to consider:
You know that time, resources and a little love went into creating all the pieces you’ve curated. So whether you’re sharing on social media or working the content into a blog post, make sure you’re giving the original writer and/or publication credit for their hard work.
If you want your content curation efforts to be successful and effective, consistency is key. In addition, this tactic needs to be integrated into your overall content marketing strategy.
The frequency and curated mix that’s right for your brand will depend on your industry, overall marketing strategy and goals, but 2-4 curated social media posts a day and a monthly blog roundup could be a good starting point.
“If you want your content curation efforts to be successful and effective, consistency is key.”
Click To Tweet
Your customers, prospects and partners are likely creating some great content. Highlight that content to show them you’re in touch with their business and help you serve up relevant content to your audience.
While curated content may not be your work, you should still share and promote it like your own to get more reach, engagement and awareness. Remember that variety is the spice of life. Below are some places to publish and share include:
There are a number of helpful content curation and distribution tools out there. Use them to streamline your processes so you can consistently share find and share. Below are some free and paid options to consider:
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Each week, the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions publishes a “Top Trending Content” blog post focused on what’s happening and what’s being talked about in the marketing world.
Below is a shot of one of their latest posts.
BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is a champion of curated content, utilizing a variety of sources to compile silly, interesting, newsworthy and timely posts each day. While the example below isn’t exactly hard hitting news or focused on helpful tips, it definitely employs a number of content curation best practices such as utilizing social sharing platforms, crediting sources and focusing on a specific topic their readers will enjoy.
Innovatech Labs
Big brands and companies aren’t the only ones who can find interesting and relevant content to curate for their unique audiences. There’s also opportunity for smaller and niche businesses to do it, too.
Innovatech Labs is a materials testing lab that uses several analytical testing techniques, which are useful to many manufacturers who want to ensure product quality and cleanliness. Each month, Innovatech Labs publishes an Analytical Testing News Roundup featuring interesting articles that showcase how those techniques are being used in the real world.
TopRank Marketing
TopRank Marketing’s social news feeds feature a hearty mix of commentary, photos, links to original content and, of course, curated content links. Here’s a peek at our recent Twitter posts, highlighting great content from some of our favorite sources.
HubSpot
HubSpot’s “The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics” is a great example of content curation at its finest. This resource features the latest marketing statistics and is organized by tactic. In addition, it’s continually updated as new data is released.
CMO.com by Adobe
CMO.com by Adobe provides a great mix of curated and original content. In fact, their tagline says it all: “Digital marketing insights, expertise and inspiration – for and by marketing leaders.” The big way they’re featuring curated content is through their “Marketing News Feed,” which pulls in posts from authoritative and credible sources such as Social Media Today, MarketingProfs, Marketing Insider Group and even TopRank Marketing Blog.
Do you curate content? How often are you doing it and where do you find inspiration for it? Tell us in the comments section below.
Disclosure: LinkedIn and Innovatech Labs are TopRank Marketing clients.
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. | Content Curation 101: 7 Best Practices, Helpful Tools & Great Examples | http://www.toprankblog.com
The post Content Curation 101: 7 Best Practices, Helpful Tools & Great Examples appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Do yourself a favor and become a Jedi, not a Sith. Going the way of the black hat SEO will only lead to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering...
The post 11 Black Hat Techniques That Can Kill an SEO Campaign by @josephhhoward appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Here are 6 mind-blowing SEO experiments we did this year, what we learned from them, and what it all means.
The post 6 SEO Experiments That Will Blow Your Mind by @LarryKim appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google and NORAD have the apps you need to track Santa this Christmas Eve.
The post Track Santa This Christmas Eve With Apps from Google and NORAD, or with Google Assistant by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
We have a lot to celebrate this time of year and I feel incredibly lucky that TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog gets to celebrate yet another blog birthday.
And thank you to Ashley Zeckman for doing a great job managing our blog in 2016!
I have a confession: Starting a blog in 2003 was just another “thing” to explore for its marketing value, not some ephiphany-inspired marketing journey. The inspiration came from a drive to reach more people with fewer resources in a meaningful way. Could blogging be the solution?
In fact, the creation of TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog followed several other search marketing focused blogs that launched the same year including Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Journal and SEO Book. Two of those three are still going pretty strong with daily posts and large readerships.
But it didn’t take long to realize that the useful content published through blogging was opening up doors for our business. Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement.
A million plus reasons. This year we’ve attracted just under 1.5 million visitors to our blog and search has led the way. 56% of our visitors come from search and much of the rest from direct and social networks. Our blog has been included on many top marketing blog lists with a growing network of 300,000+ across our social networks. We’ve attracted amazing talent, super smart clients and great partners – all thanks to the great blogging contributions from Ashley, Josh, Caitlin, Tiffany, Kevin, Knute and Jolina from our team.
Thank you back! Beyond the acolades, rankings and such – some of the most meaningful feedback I get is when people approach me and say they’ve been following our blog through their career or after starting a business and how much it has helped them. What makes that feedback meaningful isn’t just the “warm fuzzy”, it’s seeing our strategy pay off: That the combination of content we create along with real world experiences will be instrumental for growing our business.
Content is Social and Social is Influential. Today, creating content through blogging is as social of an activity for us as it is a way to provide ultility. We’ve connected with an incredible community of marketing industry influencers through content delivered as blog posts in addition to candidates, partners and clients. These connections have evolved into relationships and more.
Slow Down and Ramp Up. In 2016 I took a backseat to creating content on our blog to focus on other areas of our business and methods of advancing our thought leadership. In my place, Ashley Zeckman has stepped up and published 3 times as many posts as I have. She’s also developed internal and external relationships for regular contributions and co-creation that have added a lot of value for our readers.
Social and Influencer Marketing Dominate Our Topics. It’s amazing what happens when you develop a strategy, create a corresponding editorial plan and follow through. I’m only half being snarky with that comment. We published a lot more content around social media marketing since that is what people are interested in (and it’s an area of our business). In fact, our most popular post in terms of traffic for 2016 was 9 Social Media Marketing Trends That Could Make or Break Your Business in 2017.
Side note: Out of the top 10 most popular (traffic) posts for the year, only 1 was actually published in 2016. Evergreen content FTW!
We also published a lot more content about influencer marketing as a result of a decision to advance our thought leadership in this fast-growing area of our business. We were engaged by 3 Fortune 100 companies in 4th Quarter alone for influencer content programs and that trend is not going to slow down in 2017 at all. In part, this is thanks to the useful and thought leadership content around influencer marketing being published on the blog.
Of course we’ll continue to cover all our staple topics that are most relevant to the practical areas of our consulting: Content Marketing, SEO, Social, Influencer Marketing. I also think we’ll evolve the fun Friday news videos that Tiffani and Josh do every week and do more video overall. I know our long time readers are thinking, “What took you so long?”.
Besides kudos to Ashley, our excellent blogging team deserves a lot of thanks. To give you an idea of the great work they’ve been doing, here are some of their most popular posts:
Ashley Zeckman
314 career blog posts
69 posts in 2016
Most popular post of 2016:
50 Influential Women in Digital Marketing: North Stars & Rising Stars (5,600 social shares/engagement)
Josh Nite
61 career blog posts
48 posts in 2016
Most popular post of 2016:
Content Marketing: Answer These 4 Questions in the First 15 Seconds (2,400 social shares/engagement)
Caitlin Burgess
56 career blog posts
52 posts in 2016
Most popular post of 2016:
7 Tips for Making Your Brand More “Likeable” on Social Media (2,600 social shares/engagement)
Tiffani Allen
47 career blog posts
47 posts in 2016
Most popular post of 2016:
Online Marketing News: Snapchat Unicorns, Periscope Moderation and Instagram Business (292 social shares/engagement)
Lee Odden
2514 career blog posts
24 posts in 2016 (I can’t believe it either – time to get back to blogging in 2017)
Most popular post of 2016:
50 Social Media Marketing Influencers to Follow (6,100 social shares/engagement)
Kevin Cotch
10 career blog posts
10 posts in 2016
Most popular post of 2016:
Understanding the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on SEO (1,800 social shares/engagement)
Knute Sands
7 career blog posts
7 posts in 2016
Most popular post of 2016:
Easy-as-Pie Guide to Content Planning (1,600 social shares/engagement)
Jolina Pettice
75 career blog posts
2 posts in 2016
Most popular post of 2016:
3 Great Storytelling Tips for Compelling Customers (1,100 social shares/engagement)
We all contribute to your success. The rest of the team at TopRank Marketing contributes to our blog indirectly, by sharing insights, research and data as well as sharing the resulting blog posts to their social networks. Blogging is truly a team effort at TopRank Marketing and I think the end product really shows the impact of our collective wisdom and collaboration.
Going forward. There’s a lot more I could share about this blog in celebration of our 13th blog birthday, but I think the overall focus here is that it’s important to experiment, but to do so with a vision or some long term goal in mind. If I wasn’t driven to persist with blogging during my first year despite no visitors, no engagement all with a substantial amount of of time invested, this blog would not have survived. Without that early survival, our young business would not have achieved the amazing momentum we have now, or laid the groundwork for being able to attract the team that runs blog now an into 2017. Persistence with vision (and ongoing optimization) pays off!
Our community rocks! I am immensely appreciative of the support our community has provided in return to the useful content our team publishes on TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog. I appreciate the contributions that super busy industry influencers and friends from Ann Handley to Joe Pulizzi to Mike Stelzner and many more continue to make to help make our content great. Also, a huge thanks to major brand executives from the U.S., UK and broader Europe that have contributed to our blog with their insights this past year. Your investment in time makes this blog a better resource for us all. Thank you!
Seasons Greetings!
Here are some warm wishes from our team to yours.
May your marketing programs be successful,
to make your holiday season less stressful.
May your customers be joyful and content,
because of the great campaigns you sent.
May your hearts be full and your season merry,
so that you start 2017 refreshed and not wary.
Thank you for being a part of our community.
From,
The Team at TopRank Marketing
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. | Lucky 13 – Happy Birthday to TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog! | http://www.toprankblog.com
The post Lucky 13 – Happy Birthday to TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog! appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
