11 Ways Search Has Changed Since the Last Google Dance
To put it in perspective, the last time Google held its on-campus Google Dance in conjunction with the SMX West conference, George W. Bush was still President. In the Democratic Primaries following Super Tuesday 2008, it was far from clear that Barack Obama would defeat Hillary Clinton for the Presidential nomination. Obama had a slight […]
Goodbye, Right Rail: 7 Incredibly Cogent Points About the New-Look AdWords
Everyone’s talking about Google’s recent decision to remove AdWords ads from the right rail. Let me humbly add the most incredibly cogent response to date. A few folks noticed Google’s tests prior to the rollout. Some folks, like Moz’s Dr. Pete Myers, noticed a lot more than others. Are some observers overreacting? Probably. Some of […]
The Death Of Search Marketing Expertise
Recently, I had dinner in Orlando with Bill and Ted (not their real names), some pretty successful digital agency owners. (By successful, I mean more than 50 employees and strong annual revenues.) They’ve been friends of mine for a long time, so I assumed they’d be up for a little of the usual expert banter. […]
PPC Geo-Bidding, Simplified
Recently, I came across a social media post that — honest to goodness — went on at length about the price the poster would be willing to pay for a new brand of ketchup. “I’d need 50 percent off to give it a try,” opined the timid tomato tester. “If I turn out not to like the […]
Are Paid & Organic Distinct Channels? Not So Fast
At our company’s informal book club, we recently had a nice discussion of David Hand’s The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. Belief in causation where there is only correlation, faulty assumptions about how “randomness” works and similar errors are shockingly common, even among the educated. Superstition can be a nightmare for the […]
Reactive SEO vs. Proactive SEO
I, for one, love and respect our spam-fighting, quality-content-loving overlords. Perhaps because I’m mainly associated with the PPC side of our company, I and my paid-media contemporaries can get a little cantankerous about the details of paid search products, as addicted to them as we and our clients may be. That can tend to overshadow […]
7 Ironclad (Slightly Fudgeable) Laws of PPC Campaign Structure
[This post is a companion to a panel session at SMX East in New York, Sep. 30, 2015: The Great PPC Account Structure Debate – #smx #23B] It’s no secret that I’m no fan of needless busywork in PPC account management. Just as SEO firms used to bill clients for what Jill Whalen famously reduced […]
PPC Ads Not Performing? Reduce Cognitive Load
If you’re a seasoned online marketer, you’ve probably been exposed to user experience gurus, conversion rate improvement experts and their ilk. Even without knowing the high-level principles, many designers and performance marketers have developed a bias in favor of simplicity. Concepts such as the use of white space and decluttering a page have been bandied […]
Fresh Fish Sold Here Today? On Meddlesome Marketing Advice
There are literally hundreds of ways of telling the old marketing joke about the “FRESH FISH SOLD HERE TODAY” sign that appears by the fishmonger’s stall in the open-air market. (Here’s a really thorough version.) For those who’ve never heard it, the helpful observer helps the business owner whittle down the redundant words in the […]
PPC Audits: A Guide to Playing Fair
Arbitrary destruction of reputations turns people into slaves. -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, recent Facebook post Ever been taken down by an “ambush audit”? It’s not fun. Tempted to win new business yourself by ambushing an incumbent agency? Tempting, but… Is your organization actually built around approaching businesses and cold-pitching them, with the “ambush audit” as the […]
