Frederick Vallaeys says, “Some account managers like to use the same keyword in multiple match types in their accounts to get better bid control or to show more relevant ads for queries that are closer to the keyword.To execute the strategy properly, bids for each match type need to be kept at a certain level relative to the other match types. For example, if the exact match keyword’s max CPC is $1.00, the advertiser may want to bid 80 percent (or $0.80) for phrase match and 60 percent (or $0.60) for broad or modified broad match.This is called “tiered bidding” or “stacked bidding.”... [...]

Daniel Burstein says, “If you’re engaged in landing page optimization, step back from the analytics for a moment and ask yourself a bigger question — why do we have a landing page in the first place?Sure, you’re selling stuff. Getting leads. Achieving a conversion. Blah blah blah. Yes, that is all true.But, all of those objectives have a fundamental similarity.The objective of a landing page is to help a customer make a decisionAnd yes, that objective usually skews towards the get them to buy/donate to/download something. But by taking a customer-first marketing approach to your... [...]

Kevin George says, ”Navigating the web these days can make a person feel like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.There’s so much to be seen here that — until somewhat recently — was fairly unheard of. And we don’t know what’s good or bad. It’s as if we’re constantly coming across a new cast of characters and are forced to ask, “Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?”Replace the word “witch” with “bot,” and you might be summing up the modern digital landscape. There’s a lot of talk about AI, but it can be confusing. Is it helpful, or harmful?... [...]

Stefanie Flaxman says, “By now you know that — technical details aside — SEO is not separate from content marketing; it’s an integrated aspect of content marketing.Optimizing your content for search engines is part of your craft and a skill you can strengthen with practice.But even when you rank well for search terms your audience uses, the real test is what happens when someone clicks through to your website. As Brian wrote on Monday:“There’s nothing worse than a quick bounce.”To avoid a quick bounce, you need to focus on content optimization. Since you don’t want to miss... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Google’s domination of the US search ad market isn’t letting up. Thanks to mobile in particular, Google will take 77.8 percent of US search ad revenues this year. By next year, for every dollar spent on search advertising in the US, an even eight dimes will go to Google. The remaining 20 cents will be split up among Microsoft, Yahoo, Yelp, Amazon, Ask and AOL, according to eMarketer’s latest report on the US digital ad market.“Google’s dominance in search, especially mobile search, is largely coming from the growing tendency of consumers to turn to their smartphones... [...]

Rand Fishkin says, “One of the marketing world’s greatest frustrations has long been the lack of data from Google and other search engines about the behavior of users on their platforms. Occasionally, Google will divulge a nugget of bland, hard-to-interpret information about how they process more than X billion queries, or how many videos were uploaded to YouTube, or how many people have found travel information on Google in the last year. But these numbers aren’t specific enough, well-sourced enough, nor do they provide enough detail to be truly useful for all the applications... [...]

Ben Davis says, “Our Day in the Life feature recently profiled an SEO account manager within an agency, but now we’re turning the spotlight on a client-side SEO specialist.Jack Saville is an SEO specialist at Bynder. Here’s what he does with his days.And if you’re looking for a new challenge in digital our jobs board lists hundreds of open positions, and you can benchmark your own digital knowledge using our Digital Skills Index.Please describe your job: What do you do?I work as an SEO specialist for a digital-asset management provider in Amsterdam called Bynder.Bynder... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Last week, we reported about a new unconfirmed Google ranking update that is going by the name of Fred. Google has not confirmed this update. In fact, they told us they have no comment at all on this.That being said, I spent the weekend collecting sample URLs of webmasters who claimed to have been hit by this update. After reviewing now upward of 100 different sites, I believe this update targets low-value content sites that put revenue above helping their users.The vast majority of URLs shared with me all show the same type of website. A content site, often in a blog... [...]

Andrew Ruegger says, “Generation Z and early Generation Alpha will likely be the last of us to type.Keyboard users are a dying population. Who is the next generation? Voice users. If you spend time with young kids, you’ll notice that they favor voice assistants over keyboards. And who can blame them? People rarely turn down easier ways of doing things!Marketers need to be thinking about this shift, because voice search will have a significant impact on content discovery through search. Although currently there is no simple or precise way of identifying voice vs. non-voice queries, “Okay... [...]

Laura Scott says, “Often when we think about the holidays, we envision panicked crowds on Black Friday, Cyber Monday desk shoppers and last-minute gifters filling their cart on Christmas Eve. We think about the winter holiday season. That’s no surprise, since last year, the winter holidays accounted for over $658 billion in sales, according to NRF. They’re an important time for retailers; but they’re not the only time that search behavior and sales spike.Other holidays like Mother’s Day, Halloween and the Back-to-School “holiday” all compel shoppers to search for different needs,... [...]