Category: Search Engine Watch

SEO isn’t the big money maker many people believe, with many SEOs serving a small number of clients most earning smaller revenue. Bright Local has done a refresh of their 2011 Local SEO Industry Survey and there are some surprising results.

Google has just updated their list of ccTLDs (Country Coded Top Level Domains) they will treat as a generic TLD. This means that Google will consider these ccTLDs as generic for geotargeting, similarly to how .com domains are treated as generic.

Google says it’s merely following the lead of the United Nations and other organizations. The Palestinian National Authority is praising Google’s decision, while Israel states Google’s move is causing more harm than good in the geopolitical battle.

Google has removed the link to Places search. The link, which had been located in Google’s “More” drop-down menu option, is no longer there, meaning local businesses can only be found via search (paid or organic), Google+ Local, or Google Maps.

Of the smartphone users studied, 60 percent used apps to access local information in 2012. Tablets are also becoming a technology to watch in mobile marketing, with tablet ownership crossing 40 million in just two years.

How can a brand rank in authenticity and pull some publicity out of its Facebook Page? With the right mix of art and science. Check out the latest top shelf insights, data, and tips designed for fashion forward thinking Facebook community managers.

People learn in different ways. Some people learn by doing, others by watching, while others learn best by listening or in another way. Here’s how to understand learning styles and align the types of content you create to your website’s visitors.

Is a free web design or blog template right for you? Or do your business goals demand a custom website design and professional specialists for certain aspects? These 12 factors will help you determine whether free or paid is the right route for you.

Intel launched a five-month series of time lapse photography and slow motion videography contests, supported by TrueView ads and Promoted Channels. The campaign resulted in the highest conversion rate from ad to response the team had ever seen.

As an authority, with great visibility, and publishing great content, you will get links. If you’ve been guest posting solely to obtain links, without regard to any other benefit, here’s how to shift into a high value content marketing campaign.

Google has added goal conversions to its real-time reports. The Conversions report shows a list of the most recent goals, sorted by the number of conversions (highest to lowest). The report shows the goal number, then the name you gave your goal.

The application describes a device that would be placed on a wristband and would include one or more touch displays. The watch would include both clock hardware and a data line, suggesting the device will be capable of connecting to the internet.

Yahoo’s front-page news stream now displays personalized ads alongside news articles and other features. Stream Ads will have a similar look and feel to the news articles that will share space with the ads on Yahoo’s home page.

Facebook has confirmed that it will remove videos of people having their heads cut off. “We will remove instances of these videos that are reported to us while we evaluate our policy and approach to this type of content,” Facebook says.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s annual Who Has Your Back? report lauds a number of major companies for their efforts to help preserve user privacy and report to the public the extent of their cooperation with government groups.

LinkedIn reports that affluents use social media primarily for professional reasons. One out of every two surveyed use social media to connect with other professionals, while one in three use social media to engage with professional content.

With 1 billion people visiting YouTube worldwide every month, virtually any audience that content creators or advertisers want to reach is on YouTube. But, according to Google, the audience that most marketers want to reach is called Generation C.

Consistently creating great content is challenging. Rather than constantly churning out new content, you can promote the same or similar content on different media channels. Use these tactics and tools to reach a larger audience with less effort.

The people who pay your bills put a lot of trust in you. They need your direction, guidance and expertise. Take pride in your work or don’t do it. Always remember there are real people behind the numbers you put into your spreadsheet.

Demonstrating ROI is a critical element of marketing performance when faced with reporting obstacles. Here are five recommendations for providing greater performance measurement on B2B SEO programs impacted by “not provided” traffic percentages.