Search & Marketing articles

Email remains a resilient form of communication for marketers, despite the myriad of other communication platforms available today. Most people check their emails at least once a day, and spam now has a hard time slipping through the net. What’s more, email newsletters from businesses are a part of everyday life and if someone has subscribed to your list, the chances are they’ll have at least some interest in what you have to say. Having...

Not keeping track of your website’s metrics, or doing it but not taking action based on what you find, is more or less equal to walking around in pitch darkness hoping to somehow reach your destination: both are possible but highly unlikely. But which metrics should you pay special attention to? Some of them you’ve probably heard about hundreds of times as they tend to crop up in every self-respecting webmaster’s watch list. There are,...

Whenever someone asks, “How can I increase traffic to my website?” the answer is invariably, “Regularly post new content.” You could be alone in the forest where the proverbial tree fell when you ask this question, and you’d probably get the same answer from a passing bear. The bear might even offer you a course on making website content for only $49.95 USD, involving three easy web seminars. People keep saying that your company blog...

Once upon a time, the most Siri had to deal with was a few offensive remarks or sexually explicit requests. We probably all did it at least once. But in just a few short years, voice search has exploded to become a serious contender against traditional, text-based search. Microsoft’s Cortana has over 100 million monthly users, 40% of adults talk to their phones every day, and it’s predicted that half of all searches will be done vocally by...

Web surveys are important tools that websites and businesses can use to gauge important feedback from their site visitors and customers. Web surveys are also somewhat unsung elements of a site because their role is primarily to collect data instead of being a main feature. In e-commerce, and in any business really, determining what your customers want is largely based on directly asking them. Plus, doing so will also give you amazing insight...

Content is design, and our content is full of clickbait, these days. Sadly, there are many sites that are still using this technique to draw traffic to their pages. That should bother you. At the very least least, the recent decision by Facebook to update their algorithm such that it can filter out the sensational content should be a wake-up call. This was not their first backlash at such content. A 2014 update of their algorithm had the same purpose....

Marketing is a waste of time. At least that’s how it feels for many designers. They’re not getting enough traffic, clients or sales. In fact, everything about getting customers feels like a slog. It feels like they’re spinning their wheels. Maybe you can relate. Marketing is tough when you don’t feel you know what you’re doing. Which is exactly why so many designers are unsure about what to say, who to say it to or when. No wonder we...

Looking for a new way to experience Instagram and get something more out of it? If you are, then Instagram Stories is just the kind of update that you’ve been waiting for. Instagram has always been the platform to give your friends and families updates of special occurrences and events in your life. So it makes sense that this new feature builds on that by letting all users tell their stories in the form of a slideshow. According to Instagram,...

One of the biggest bugbears of social media is trolling: attacking individuals based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or politics. If you’re a woman with the temerity to hold an opinion of any kind you’ll be subject to abuse, threats of sexual violence, and even the murder of your children. If you have the audacity to star in a remake of an 80s kid’s film, then God help you. And all of this is made possible by anonymity. Twitter...

The microblogging platform that revolutionized how the world communicates and markets with 140-character snippets just turned 10. It’s hard to believe that such an omnipresent service is just a decade old. Of course, the company has also been plagued by operational problems, and it still isn’t profitable. But Twitter’s lasting legacy is building a must-use platform that everyone—from designers, to marketers, to politicians,...

It’s inappropriate to ‘Like’ someone’s firing, breakup, fashion disaster, or untimely demise. That’s the conundrum Facebook has been struggling with since it introduced its ‘Like’ button seven years ago. Today, after announcing the move last year, Facebook has rolled out its new ‘Reactions’ to all users. The six buttons—Like, Love, Wow, Sad, Bashful, and Sneezy—are intended to convey the full spectrum of human...

We all know about Facebook’s most popular button: the Like button. You’ve probably already used the thumbs-up icon more times than you care to admit (perhaps to boost your friends’ self-esteem whenever they share a funny-cat video), but now, Facebook is finally giving us the opportunity to express ourselves in a slightly more complex way. Announced late last week, the new Facebook experiment, dubbed “Reactions,” will let...

For the past 5+ years, I’ve been in web development marketing in some shape or form. From the customers to the travel, it’s been an interesting journey, to say the least. I’ve done it all: sales, digital marketing, paid, organic, trade shows, content curation/creation, etc. I’m now at the stage in my career when the next generation of marketers are asking me what things I wish I had known before I got into the industry. Sure, I could wax...

Social media has become a constant in modern daily life. By now it’s not uncommon for grandparents to have their own profiles on Facebook. This means that marketing on social media is beginning to have less limits on possible target demographics, and increasingly greater reach as the number of users on major social media sites rises. That said, the social media marketing realm is as dependent on constant change as the social media landscape...