What the Heck is Google Punch?

No, really! Does anyone actually know what the unveiled Google Punch does? Apparently Google Operating System spotted Google Punch listed in a Google Documents drop-down–within the video below. Speculation has already started as to what Google Punch could be, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

SEO Tops Digital Marketing Tactics for 2011

Here we are just past the halfway mark in 2010 and we’ve tapped into the stream of future marketing planning with our readers for 2011 with a poll. Our question? What 3 online marketing channels & tactics will you emphasize in 2011? The number one answer? Not social media, not email marketing. The top digital [...]

Take the 2011 Digital Marketing Poll

It’s safe to say 2009 and 2010 were breakout years for social media. Our last Digital Marketing poll showed 6 of the top 10 tactics as social media complemented by search engine marketing and email.  Slimmer marketing budgets and mass media attention have inspired a rush to many types social media marketing tactics bringing a [...]

Chart: Each Google Employee Worth $1.4M

Back in 2008, we reported on the atonishing revenue Google was generating per employee: $210,000 per year! It appears that revenue has turned into a nice little stockpile of cash for the search giant. If you were to divide up all the cash Google has in its coffers, each employee would walk away with $1.4 [...]

Ask Asks If the Human Element Will Help Its Search Business

Ask has always been the red-headed stepchild of the search industry. It’s always lurking in the shadows as the #4 search engine and usually gets a mention in search share only if there was significant up or down movement. Accounting has the Big 4 but search only has the Big 3 which is soon to [...]

3 Essential Small Business Search Marketing Trends

“Qualified”, “showing intent to buy”, “high conversion rate” and many other phrases are used to describe search engine marketing.  As a $16 billion industry, Search Marketing including SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC ads (pay per click) represent a substantial opportunity for small businesses to connect with customers at the moment they are looking for [...]

Thinking Critically About Web Video

Web video is hot. Some say your chance to be a pioneer. How hot, and how much of an opportunity? Recent reports from comScore, consistently say more than 80% of the total U.S. Internet audience views online video in a given month. YouTube’s fact sheet states every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to [...]

Thank You To Our Web Hosting Sponsor VISI

For the past 3 plus years, TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has been hosted by Minneapolis based website hosting provider, VISI.  When our past host shut us down without warning for getting too much traffic, VISI and Online Marketing Blog connected and worked out a sponsorship. VISI is the only company with an ongoing “ad” on [...]

Lee Odden On SEO And The Social Web – OMS Minneapolis Keynote

Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing CEO gave the opening keynote of Online Marketing Summit Minneapolis.  Lee spoke on the intersection of SEO and social media and provided key takeaways for companies on achieving success. As the social web and search engines integrate and innovate tighter, the intersection between search and social is growing more meaningful [...]

10 Reasons Why Your Analytics Are Failing & 13 Tools To Help

Web Analytics are a key indicator to the health and performance of any website, but online marketers often get lost in the complexities and details, forgetting how important analytics actually are and why. Analytics can provide a wealth of information but marketers often look at high level indicators such as: top content, bounce rates, entrance [...]

Getting Connected at SES San Francisco

The Search Engine Strategies conference from Incisive Media has really taken an amazing turn this year for the West Coast event. Not only have organizers moved the conference from San Jose to San Francisco, but SES is now a part of an event called Connected Marketing Week that involves a coordinated effort from a number [...]

4 Steps to Social SEO Success

The sheer volume of social media marketing and search engine optimization advice posted online can make it difficult for companies to make sense out what direction they should take. There are many models and approaches to leveraging  optimized content for discovery through search and how to develop social networks to engage customers and promote content. [...]

Facebook and Twitter Integration Most Popular with E-Mail Campaigns While Mobile Lags

Although it comes as no surprise to most, the integration of e-mail campaigns and social media outlets is becoming more popular. Leading the charge are Facebook and Twitter which is probably no surprise either. What is a little surprising is just how quickly the numbers dive with regard to other options for social media integration. [...]

Colleges Get Schooled in the Art of Modern Marketing

We like to think of colleges and universities as places where learning trumps all else, but the truth of the matter is that institutions like these are still businesses, which means they need to make money. Says Rob Moore of Lipman Hearne, a marketing company specializing in non-profits: “Higher ed institutions today are facing a [...]

Content Marketing: Definitions of Curation & Context

Companies are realizing the value in “brands as publishers” and are making real commitments to the creation of content in their online marketing mix. It’s no longer enough to provide fundamental features and benefits information about products and services to succeed competitively online. Consumers and of course, business buyers, seek additional information, resources and others [...]

Win a Free Pass to Online Marketing Summit Minneapolis

It’s that time of year again and the ClickZ Online Marketing Summit will arrive shortly to the Minneapple, Friday June 25th. The conference organizer has generously donated a free pass to the 1 day workshop for us to give away here on Online Marketing Blog. The agenda covers everything from Social to SEO to B2B [...]

Smarter Ways to Get Content Ideas for B2B Blogs

One of the most common challenges of business blogging is sourcing content. The range of things that can interrupt content creation are important obstacles to overcome because without content there is little reason for readers to return.  Blogs are fairly easy to start and if you’ve been a reader of this blog, chances are pretty [...]

6 Tools For Better Blogging With An iPad

Like many others, I recently purchased an iPad out of curiosity. While my intentions were of discovery, I quickly found some productivity gains with blogging. The upside to blogging with an iPad is that it’s portable and you can easily log your thoughts on a screen that is a lot more convenient than typing into [...]

Is Your Online Marketing Agency a Dud? 23 Signals of Credibility

Hiring outside expertise to grow thought leadership, sales and market share is essential for companies that do not have the internal resources to do so. At TopRank Online Marketing, we have conversations with companies every day that have deep expertise in their fields, but when it comes to online marketing, they’ve realized the need for [...]

5 Tips on Twitter Chats Plus 8 Marketing & PR Chats to Follow

There are many tactics companies can implement as part of a smart Twitter Marketing strategy. Growing the initial following is important as is providing the budding community you’re building with something of value to keep coming back and to spread the good word to their networks. One such tactic that offers value and brings people [...]

Glam Media Moves on the Men

A few days ago, Glam Media, the number one vertical media company for women, announced that they were going to buy ad technology start-up AdPortal. The idea was that their tech would help bolster Glam Media’s GlamAdapt program which allows publishers to run their own self-service ad portals. The emphasis is on detailed demographics that [...]

Amazon and Facebook Team Up and It’s Kinda Creepy

Amazon began beta testing a new application this week that claims to be a simple gift suggestion engine for your family and friends. It all begins on the Amazon recommendation page. From there, you give Amazon permission to talk to Facebook and from there you get a page full of people matched with products. At the [...]

Mr. Zuckerberg Goes to Washington

Frank Capra’s famous movie from 1939 “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is described in IMDb as “A naive man is appointed to fill a vacancy in the US Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn’t back down.” Yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg went to Washington as well. It appears though that [...]

Using Google’s Android? That’ll Be $10 a Year, Thanks!

How are you enjoying that free Android software that powers your iPhone-competing smart phone? I hope you like it enough to reimburse Google $10 a year, because that’s what Google CEO Eric Schmidt is hoping to get out of each Android user: “If we have a billion people using Android, you think we can’t make [...]

Report: Smart Mobile Marketers Give Away Free Ice Cream

What are the latest trends in mobile marketing? Millennial Media just released their SMART (Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting) report for June and it provides insight on the habits of mobile advertisers. First, we learn that Retail and Restaurants are making a move to attract more mobile customers–with location based coupons and seasonal [...]

SEO Basics: Telephone Game & the Fresh vs. New Content Debate

There’s a game of telephone going on about a hundred different theories of Search Engine Optimization and the influences or signals that affect search visibility. One that I continue to hear revolves around the notion that search engines like fresh content. I’m sure the genesis was something like:  Someone told someone else at a conference [...]

3 Things You Should Know About the New PRWeb

As a longtime customer of PRWeb, I’ve seen many changes over the years. The oldest optimized press release I could find of mine that’s still online dates back to mid 2001 and in the years since, it’s been an evolving relationship moving from customer to consultant. From the days of talking new features as a [...]

Video: Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead

Sometimes we learn best about doing things in new and innovative ways by understanding them in terms of something we already know. Stories provide useful context and perspective and that’s exactly what David Meerman Scott has done with his latest book that’s just been announced: “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can [...]

Yahoo Japan Disses Bing, Picks Google as New Search Partner

Holy smack in the face Batman! Yahoo Japan just signed a 2-year deal with Google! Yes, with Google! Not, Bing! Before the word “mutiny” jumps to your prefrontal cortex–your “mind” for the rest of us–you need to know this: Yahoo holds only a 35% stake in Yahoo Japan, so the search engine couldn’t put its [...]

Whose Reputation is Worse Than a Member of Congress? Advertisers, Of Course!

Advertising suffers from a reputation problem. Here at Marketing Pilgrim we are very interested in online reputation management but even the best social media monitoring tools can’t help some industries. Of course, when you spend years simply ignoring how poorly you are viewed by the public in general, it doesn’t help. This is how the [...]