SEM Blog

SEO / 05.10.2015

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 the awe and wonder we should feel about search technology as a whole. Through relentless effort via algorithm updates (primarily Panda), Google has...

Paid Search Marketing / 30.09.2015

[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 to "boondoggles" -- filling potholes that don't exist, if you will -- I've generally been wary of long to-do lists in...

Paid Search Marketing / 11.09.2015

I recently learned some neuroscience tips at a seminar called The Human Mind & Usability, which was hosted by well-known usability experts the Nielsen Norman Group. In this article, I’ll discuss easy and effective ways to incorporate the discipline of neuroscience into landing pages. The same principles can obviously be used for other website pages too. Why is this important? Cognitive Load Reduces Our Effectiveness Our brains get overwhelmed (and, as a result, don’t work effectively) if they’re too...

Paid Search Marketing / 14.08.2015

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 around for years in the normal course of creating better experiences for users. Lurking behind much of the advice are higher-order principles of...

Paid Search Marketing / 31.07.2015

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 sign. Today? Obviously. Remove the word. Here? Where else? Remove the word. Sold? Are you giving the fish away? Remove the...

Paid Search Marketing / 22.07.2015

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 mainstay of your approach to winning new business? Well then. You are the embodiment of evil. Continue reading on The SEM Post....

Paid Search Marketing / 16.07.2015

So you've set up your mobile PPC campaigns, but are these searchers converting? Mobile, mobile, mobile. It’s all we hear about these days! Even so, many marketers are still not taking steps to fully optimize their PPC landing pages for mobile users. In this article, I discuss several factors that can really make a difference when it comes to your mobile pages. Note that these tips can also be used on “regular” (non-PPC) mobile site pages. Continue reading on Search...