• Digging Deep With Google Analytics Custom Variables
    Out-of-the-box website analytics tools are rarely satisfying. Sites that track only standard visits, pageviews, and bounces are missing out on some of the richest Web marketing data available. Every digital marketer should have a clear understanding of the data points that will be essential to maximizing the on-site user experience, which will ultimately foster greater audience engagement and yield more revenue.
  • Your Ad Agency Is A Contractor, Not A Partner
    Imagine gathering bids for a construction project in your house such as a bathroom renovation. A few hours before the deal is signed, you happen to find out that your friend had his comparable bathroom redone for $7,500 by the same contractor, but your quote comes in at $12,000, for the same work and material. You confront your contractor over the pricing disparity and he tells you, "I'm charging you more because you pay more in property taxes." Sounds ridiculous, right? It is, but this kind of discriminatory pricing is exactly what many interactive ad agencies do every day
  • Wonder What They're Doing On Captiva?
    I kind of feel like a kid who stayed home while the rest of his friends headed off to summer camp at Lake Winnigapahaha. I just know they're having more fun than I am. To really drive it home, my friend Ken Fadner, the publisher of MediaPost, sent me a picture the other day of the launch of the Search Insider Summit on wonderful Captiva Island. "Missing you" was Ken's postscript. Awww... I miss you too, Ken!
  • Search And Social Reciprocation In Real-Time Communities
    If you want to see the conflux of many different search and social elements come together online, just visit a popular discussion forum, wiki, or answer site. There is an interesting dynamic that occurs to help grow these entities in an almost organic way.
  • Content Marketing For SEO: Claiming Your Content Ownership In A Post-Panda World
    Last week I posted some tips for optimizing your content for SEO. This week, however, I'll address something much more serious that you need to watch out for in the "post-Panda" world: ensuring that Google understands you are the original author of that content.
  • Paging Doctor Google
    Two weeks ago I wrote about semantic search, and how Google in particular has begun dissecting the intent behind symptom-related queries. "Google's symptom search is a clear indication of the times in which we live. People get sick, and then turn to Google for answers. The biggest issue I see with symptom search, though, is the potential to minimize a patient's self-discovery process.
  • Organic Search Leads Traffic, Conversions -- But Trails In Budgets, Mindshare
    If a marketer from Mars landed on earth today, read through the last 12 months of tech news, and was asked to come to a conclusion about the largest drivers of inbound traffic to web sites based on the frequency of coverage, his answer would probably contain the words "Pinterest," "Twitter," and "Facebook," and organic search would not even be on his radar. However, marketers are not from Mars, and are supposed to care about "data." They are highly familiar with the statistics that point to search's place at the top of the purchase funnel, So why has the media …
  • Search And The Age Of 'Usefulness'
    There has been a lot of digital ink spilled over the recent changes to Google's algorithm and what it means for the SEO industry. This is not the first time the death knell has been rung for SEO. It seems to have more lives than your average barnyard cat. But there's no doubt that Google's recent changes throws a rather large wrench in the industry as a whole. In my view, that's a good thing.
  • Let's Play The Feud!
    Next week, at theSearch Insider Summit, in addition to my day job as resident buzz-tracker, I'll be donning a polyester suit and hosting the first-ever game of Search Insider Feud.
  • SEO & Content Marketing: Getting The Most Visibility For Your Valuable Content
    Content has always been essential for SEO, but in today's marketing world, providing useful, meaningful content has become key to lead generation and lead nurturing. Search provides a way to drive new leads by making that valuable content visible. Furthermore, with recent algorithm updates, Google has noticeably placed renewed emphasis on unique, relevant, and timely content. Clearly there's a marriage between SEO and content marketing. But how can you effectively enhance the SEO and content relationship? Here are some of my tips for content marketing optimization for SEO.
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