By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
The continuing rise in worldwide mobile device usage has pushed mobile SEO to the forefront of marketers’ attention. This is especially true for local businesses, which benefit greatly from search results on smartphones due to the location influence of local search results. Nearly half of mobile phone owners use their device to look for local information,according to a new report from the Local Search Association.
Traditional and mobile SEO can’t continue to work as separate marketing initiatives. They must become synonymous.
According to the venture capital firm KPCB, there are more than 244 million Internet users in the United States and 358 million mobile device subscribers, 48% of which have smartphones.ComScore reports that 52.1% of U.S. mobile phone users access a browser on their device. This equates to 187 million U.S. mobile browser users.
Does this mean marketers need to shift all of their attention to mobile search? Not yet. But the trend indicates a definite shift in the devices people use for search. And that will have a significant impact on how digital marketers engage, acquire, and retain customers for years to come.
The rate of increase of mobile Internet users illustrates the need for marketers to stop thinking about traditional and mobile SEO as two distinct programs. Marketers need to start developing strategies to merge traditional and mobile SEO into a single multichannel marketing process that is device and platform agnostic. (more…)
By Keith Trivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
Much of the recent talk in the online marketing world has centered around the emerging concept of SoLoMoCo. For the uninitiated, that stands for SOcial LOcal MObile COmmerce. Boiled down to its most basic parts, this funny looking acronym encapsulates the future of digital marketing: everything social, everything local and everything mobile.
It’s with that perspective in mind that a recent report issued by the Local Search Association (look them up here) caught my eye. The report finds that nearly half (48% to be precise) of mobile phone owners use their device to look for local information.
The Local Search Association findings point to the increased role that smartphones and tablets are increasingly playing for the search industry in the United States. In particular, the report points to the need for marketers to view mobile at a local level.
From local search and SEO, to local mobile (what we at MediaWhiz call “LoMo”), online marketing is becoming more targeted and geo-specific. That presents huge opportunities to marketers that wisely find ways to blend their traditional and mobile SEO campaigns to achieve comprehensive search results.
As my colleague Marc Purtell, MediaWhiz’s director of SEO, attests, the future of SEO is local mobile. (more…)
Editor’s note: This is the third post in a three-part series on the best free SEO tools. A more detailed analysis can be found in MediaWhiz’s new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools.” Download here.
By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
It’s not uncommon in today’s SEO landscape to wake up and find a sudden drop of organic search traffic and/or keyword rankings. When such a disaster occurs, most large brands have access to a qualified SEO agency or robust in-house team to identify and rectify any issues that led to the drops. For smaller brands with limited budget allocated to SEO, this could mean the end of the organic search channel as a driver of business.
It doesn’t have to be this way. As I explore in a new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools,” there are a variety of excellent free SEO tools that marketers can use to analyze the situation and identify the problem and solution.
By taking advantage of the intelligence that is available for free, brands with low budgets can recover from SEO issues in order to return to leveraging the organic search channel as a revenue generator. Below is a review of three such SEO tools.
RELATED: 3 Free SEO Tools for Auditing and Troubleshooting Onsite Issues
Google Webmaster Tools
An invaluable resource for SEO experts and webmasters alike, Google Webmaster Tools suite provides insight into the overall health of a website and explicitly points out many issues that can negatively affect a site’s organic search health.
Getting started is as simple as signing up for a Google account and verifying ownership of the website in question by adding either a verification file to the website’s server – including a verification meta tag on the homepage – or signing in to the site’s domain name provider.
This tool is provided by Google at no charge so there is no excuse for any website to not have an account.
Once a Google Webmaster Tools account is active, upon logging in Google will provide a list of recent alerts for each website being managed under the account. This is the first place to look for any issues that may have caused a loss of performance. More information on the issues identified as well as a list of recommended actions can be seen by clicking on “View details”.
If there are no alerts or if the recommended actions from the alerts do not remedy the issue, the next place to look is in the “Health” section within the Google Webmaster Tools interface using the left sidebar navigation. There are several reports in the Health section, including Crawl Stats, Blocked URLs, Fetch as Google, Index Status and Malware.
The Crawl Stats report is very useful in troubleshooting because it provides both a list of URLs that return errors and a timeline showing the total number of errors found on a day-to-day basis. This timeline can help pinpoint the day things went awry if there is a sudden increase in errors detected. For example, if a recent change to the website caused a number of pages to return server errors, that could definitely account for the loss of organic traffic. (more…)
Editor’s note: This is the second post in a three-part series on the best free SEO tools. A more detailed analysis can be found in MediaWhiz’s new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools.” Download here.
By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
It’s not uncommon in today’s SEO landscape to wake up and find a sudden drop of organic search traffic and/or keyword rankings. When such a disaster occurs, most large brands have access to a qualified SEO agency or robust in-house team to identify and rectify any issues that led to the drops. For smaller brands with limited budget allocated to SEO, this could mean the end of the organic search channel as a driver of business.
It doesn’t have to be this way. As I explore in a new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools,” there are a variety of excellent free SEO tools that marketers can use to analyze the situation and identify the problem and solution.
By taking advantage of the intelligence that is available for free, brands with low budgets can recover from SEO issues in order to return to leveraging the organic search channel as a revenue generator. Below is a review of three such SEO tools.
RELATED: 3 Free SEO Tools for Identifying Target Keywords (more…)
Editor’s note: This is the first post in a three-part series on the best free SEO tools. A more detailed analysis can be found in MediaWhiz’s new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools.” Download here.
By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
Choosing the right target keywords builds the foundation for an entire SEO campaign. If the right keywords with the highest potential for return are not selected, the foundation of the campaign will be weak and, therefore, success is nearly impossible.
In order to select the right keywords, data must be collected and analyzed so projections on return can be made. Gathering the necessary data, however, can be expensive and many businesses will not invest in best-of-breed SEO tools.
For those with limited budgets and without access to paid SEO tools, impactful keyword data is not out of reach. There are plenty of data sources and tools that can be used for free or offer free versions. By leveraging several free tools, advertisers can generate enough information to make informed decisions on keyword targets and set themselves up for successful SEO campaigns.
Below are three such tools. In subsequent posts, I will examine the best free SEO tools for auditing, troubleshooting and gaining competitive intelligence. For a full account of the 10 best free SEO tools, download MediaWhiz’s new report, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools.”
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By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
Today, we’re releasing a new eBook in our growing stable of Insights reports (read them all here). Titled, “10 Free, Must-Have SEO Tools,” the report outlines our top picks for the best free SEO tools and resources marketers can use to identify target keywords, audit and troubleshoot onsite SEO issues and gain competitive intelligence.
Below is a snippet of the many useful insights you’ll find inside the eBook. Download your free copy to find more.
Performance in organic search engine marketing requires an investment. Depending on the goals of a search engine optimization campaign, that investment can be quite substantial. Budget often must be allocated strategically in order to stretch it enough for success.
Part of the investment in any SEO campaign goes toward tools that help brands analyze data, strategize and track results. To do so, marketers need a bevy of tools and resources. (more…)
By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
Location, location, location. Every business owner knows that for retail traffic, it’s all about your location. Increasingly, this adage is being applied to search marketing and search engine optimization campaigns. Yes, we have entered the era of geo-targeted digital marketing.
Given the current state of both consumer search behavior and evolving search algorithms in search engines and social media platforms, geo-targeted marketing is moving closer and closer to the center of many digital strategies. Search engines have long been customizing search results based on users’ IP addresses and delivering search results relevant to users’ location and recent searches.
Whereas IP-based search represented the first phase of digital services focusing on user location, the SEO landscape has fully blown open to the possibilities of geo-targeted marketing. Location-based user experience variations are a huge part of mobile search, as well as social media search (specifically with the introduction of Facebook Graph Search).
Let’s examine why that is the case.
The Emergence of Mobile Search
A strong local search presence is important not only to occupy more relevant real estate within search engine results (organic and local listings) but also to stay competitive with the growing market share of Web users who are searching on mobile devices. There are approximately 187 million Americans accessing Web browsers on mobile devices. This number is increasing at a rate of more than 50 percent year-over-year, while the year-over-year increase of those accessing browsers on desktop devices was only 3%, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism 2012 State of News Media report.
With more Americans using mobile devices for Web searches, and the search engine results on mobile devices becoming more geo-centric, having a location-based digital strategy is essential. (more…)
By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
Today, we released a new eBook on content marketing. Titled, “Content Marketing Like a Pro,” the report outlines the key pillars to content marketing and advises marketers on best practices for crafting and executing successful content marketing programs.
This eBook also provides a framework marketers can use to improve their brand’s SEO and generate leads via a content marketing program.
When consumers first encounter a brand digitally it’s not always the brand’s website that makes the first impression. What makes the greatest impression is the authority of the brand’s website measured by where it ranks when a consumer searches.
Content marketing is a method to build this authority and rank.
Learn how to use content marketing to generate leads and improve your brand’s SEO with MediaWhiz’s new eBook, “Content Marketing Like a Pro.” (more…)
By Keith Trivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
SMX West comes to beautiful San Jose, Calif., in two weeks (March 11-13, 2013), and the MediaWhiz search and SEO teams will be there in full force. If you’re in San Jose for the conference, be sure to visit booth #321 to chat with us about our search marketing and SEO products and services. Several of our SEO and search marketing experts will be on site to discuss best practices for improving your brand’s SEO and search marketing campaigns.
MediaWhiz Vice President Daryl Colwell will take that discussion a step further during his March 11 presentation, “Content Marketing Like a Pro: Tactics and Techniques to Increase Search Engine Visibility.” Here is a brief overview of Daryl’s presentation:
Time/Date: 3-3:20 p.m. PST, Monday, March 11, 2013
Location: Theater B, San Jose McEnery Convention Center
Session Description
It’s no longer enough to have great SEO for your website. In today’s Google-controlled era of search engine marketing, brands need great content that is engaging, informative and sharable to rank well and generate leads. Join MediaWhiz’s Daryl Colwell to learn about his best practices and techniques to increase your brand’s search engine visibility through content marketing. You’ll come away from this session with a top-10 list of content marketing best practices that the pros use to generate leads and improve their brand’s SEO.
Must-Have Information
MediaWhiz will be exhibiting at SMX West, March 11-13, 2013. Meet us at booth #321.
Contact Keith Trivitt for more information or to schedule a meeting with us at the conference.
What to Do in San Jose
San Jose is one of America’s most innovative cities. Centered at the heart of Silicon Valley, it is the home to many of the world’s leading technology companies, including Cisco, Adobe and eBay. It also has a vibrant night life and plenty of fun, free activities. Here are some helpful resources you can use to plan your time in San Jose during SMX West.
