We all know by now that search is an effective channel for local marketing. Marketing through search at the local level is best practice for businesses with physical locations (and even for some without), but doing that at scale can be tricky. If you have a business with multiple locations, you’ll want to ensure that …Read full entry

Google’s recent “enhancements” and, chances are, you have already formed an opinion. At the very least, I’m certain you have heard several other people’s opinions! I’m not here to weigh in on the pros and cons of the changes but, rather, to help you  set expectations and prepare for the upcoming changes. Despite being a …Read full entry

Today Google announced some of the biggest changes to its Adwords platform in recent memory. With the roll out of what it’s calling Enhanced Campaigns, the search giant is doing a pretty dramatic 180 in its approach to the increasingly critical mobile space. Effective  for everyone in June of this year and available as an option to …Read full entry

When the Internet emerged as a new media outlet, one of the elements that no doubt set it apart from traditional media was its reporting capabilities.  While popular media like radio, TV, and newspapers could  merely estimate usage by consumers, none of them could provide concrete statistics on how many people actually interacted with an …Read full entry

Among the standing room only crowd at the SES conference in Toronto last week, Avinash Kaushik, the Google Marketing Evangelist spoke about the things that annoy users and keep businesses from maximizing their online results. There were two points that really stood out. “The obsession businesses have with ranking is stupid.” He said. The primary goal …Read full entry

Most of the world’s conflicts can be boiled down to a pretty simple cause: you have something,  I want it, and if you don’t give it to me I’ll get it from you one way or another. The ongoing dust up between Google and the web’s social media titans is no exception. When Google launched Google Search …Read full entry

This is part three of a three part series on SMX (Search Marketing Expo) 2011 at the Javits Center in Manhattan. Read part one here and part two here. The first two days of SMX focused on search marketers chasing Google and Google chasing the searcher. Day three was about everyone chasing the conversion. The sessions I …Read full entry

There’s been a lot of buzz leading up to the launch of Schema.org.  The first thing that makes Schema.org a big deal is that it is agreed upon and standardized.  The second thing that makes Schema.org a big deal is the essence of what it does.  Schema.org provides a standard protocol to add more details …Read full entry

With the announcement that they will now charge advertisers when searchers click for directions from a local ad extension, Google has taken yet another step in its march toward the monetization of the Google Places channel. Since launching location extensions integrated with a Google Places account, Google has been pushing the product hard with local advertisers. …Read full entry

Former Yahoo engineer and current agency CEO, Josh Shatkin-Margolis, is stirring the digital marketing pot at Ad Age.A few weeks ago Shatkin-Margolis declared that Search is the Worst Form of Advertising,  essentially arguing that paid search can’t really persuade (more on that below). He’s followed that up with another piece, where he asks digital marketers …Read full entry