Yearly Archives: 2012

Internet Marketing

Stop the Madness! Thanksgiving weekend used to be the best of times for retailers. The official start of the holiday season had merchants seeing green in their registers and black on their balance sheets. But between store stampedes, parking lot violence and protests by over-scheduled workers, Black Friday has become bad news. It’s time to… Read More

Analytics

It’s no accident that Google Analytics is the most widely used analytics platform on the web. According to W3Techs, and cited by TechCrunch, GA has an overwhelming market share among web analytics platforms at 81.9%, and is used by more than 55% of the top 10,000 sites. Beloved for its intuitive format and multi-dimensional reporting abilities,… Read More

Social Media

In a move that probably should have happened a year ago, Pinterest has finally announced business pages (as well as a new set of business terms of service). What’s New About Business Pages? Not a lot, which is a good thing because sometimes it’s tricky to implement social media advice. Basically, business pages make three major… Read More

Internet Marketing

I’m prepping for my Vocus webinar (can’t wait!) today at 11 Pacific. These are the slides I put together, with annotations: I’ll be going into more detail, though, so make it to the webinar if you can!

Copywriting

In a world of endless content, innovative copywriting is a great way to catch and keep the attention of the customer. While a creative approach will often draw a bigger audience than simply following best practices, it can be tempting for an editor to change the writer’s style to fit an assumption about what sells.… Read More

SEO

We’ve all been there. You’re in the marketing meeting and someone brings up SEO. I don’t know how they’re bringing it up, but they’ve done it one way or another. Maybe they used some of the phrases below. If they did, you need to know why you wish you hadn’t heard what they’ve just said.… Read More

Social Media

Or, if you’re a Republican: “What the hell just happened?!” The election was supposed to be close. Regardless of your party affiliation, you heard that for months: Maybe an electoral tie. Certainly with one candidate winning the electoral college and the other the popular vote. We wouldn’t know for days after November 6th… Oops. The… Read More

Random

AKA: ‘Because I said so’ doesn’t work This is a really long post. But before you TL;DR it, give it a quick skim. The first half is hand-waving stuff about answering ‘Why?’ The second half is specific tips on doing proposals that build imputed value. Writing a great proposal is hard. The question you’re trying… Read More

SEO

Adding copy to your website can become a tug-o-war between the Branding and SEO teams. One side is representing the voice and tone of the brand.  At the other end of the rope, the SEO team is focused on increasing keyword rankings. This can lead to everyone walking away covered in mud. Avoid that unclean… Read More

SEO

Here’s the video from Josh Patrice’s excellent SEO for small business webinar last week. Enjoy:

Analytics

You’re a small business and you’ve got a decent website—but you’re not sure how it’s doing. What you need is Google Analytics (GA), but you’re not sure what to make of all the reporting options. Don’t worry, we can help. What’s Important in Google Analytics? For a small business, the most complex reports aren’t going… Read More

Internet Marketing

Chances are you’re not the only retailer in your industry. And your business is being judged alongside other online businesses by potential customers and search engines. Getting great customer reviews on Google+ Local, Yelp and other review services can give your company a huge advantage. Why are online customer reviews so important? 70% of consumers… Read More

Internet Marketing

Once again we’re in make-or-break Q4—the time of year businesses worldwide prep (and hope) for a flood of holiday business. The time of year that can determine the difference between a going concern and concern whether you can keep going. Be it crafting a quality, attention-grabbing email campaign or optimizing a mobile marketing strategy, this… Read More

SEO

For the first time in what might be ever, Google has followed Bing’s lead and announced a tool to disavow links. We asked (or demanded), and they listened! Cleverly named the Disavow Links tool, Google Webmaster Tools’ latest feature gives power back to webmasters and takes it away from spammers. Here are our tips for… Read More

PPC

If you’ve followed my blog musings in the last year or so at Portent, you’ll know that I’m a bit of a dashboard nut. My Perfect Google Analytics Dashboard post took off in ways I never imagined. (Thanks guys!) But here’s the thing: I was lying to you all – or misleading you, anyway. There… Read More