Category Archives: Business
Social marketing to fuel growth for major U.S. retailers [data]
Brick-and-mortar-based retailers may seem like dying businesses, but 85 percent told KPMG they feel optimistic about future growth. In many instances, the forward-thinking outlets are finding ways to drive foot traffic through their front doors by embracing everything web marketing has to offer. A new KPMG report surveyed approximately 101 key retail executives, 85 percent of whom said they will spend the same as last year or more in 2013 to grab customers’ attention. In fact, 24 percent will invest more in advertising and internet marketing across various channels to nurture leads in the sales cycle. Executives told KPMG that various tech trends impact their bottom lines Continue reading
Video content reaches almost 85 percent of internet users
Video content is quickly becoming a staple in brands’ web marketing strategies as they realize their target audiences watch streaming clips more often. In May 2013, online content videos attracted 182 million Americans, or just under 85 percent of all internet users, according to comScore’s latest Video Metrics data. Viewers consumed approximately 41 billion videos that latest 5.6 minutes on average. This indicates more people went online to watch streaming content in May 2013 than in April 2013, when comScore’s Video Metrix data revealed that 181.9 million Americans tuned into video content. Over the course of two months, the average video length of 5.6 minutes stayed the same. Brands are wise to remember online consumption habits as video content becomes more of a content marketing staple and less of an optional advantage Continue reading
Google Authorship not necessarily limited to website content
Marketers have been alerted about the benefits of setting up Google Authorship, which links online content to authors’ bylines via Google+ profiles. Rich snippets that feature writers’ pictures and names next to domains entice clicks and provide better visibility in SERPs. A recent study from Search Mojo’s Janet Driscoll Miller found that Authorship might not be limited to website content, and brands may be able to build authority with other indexable filetypes as well. Miller told Search Engine Land that her experiments revealed Google can infer Authorship in PowerPoint files, Word documents and even Excel Spreadsheets that contain the term “by (author’s name).” Documents might not even have to use the term – “by (author’s name)” – to display Authorship information in search. Miller found a white paper formatted in Word will appear in SERPs with an author snippet even if it doesn’t include an explicit byline. Continue reading
Cutts: Original photos don’t add SEO value to branded content for now
Marketers that publish content for SEO know creativity and originality are key to SEO success. Google’s search algorithm updates have been revised to weed out spammy online content more effectively – i.e. unoriginal articles, blogs, product descriptions that do not provide internet users with value. Still, Google’s Search Engineer Matt Cutts’ latest Webmaster Help Channel video says the photos attached to news articles don’t necessarily have to be original… yet. Cutts explains that as far as he is concerned, the leading search engine does not use any signals that rank domains higher in SERPs for using original photos in content Continue reading
Ebooks: Where to Start and How to Finish
So there you are, sitting in front of a computer and staring at the seemingly insurmountable task represented by a new writing assignment. How can you possibly fit such a large and comprehensive topic into one white paper? The answer is – sometimes you can’t. The best solution for this conundrum may be to construct a different type of content – an ebook. Continue reading
