Paul Cheney says, “Marketing talking heads love to spout out call-to-action best practices:Keep it easy to findPut it above the foldMake it a big buttonBut all of these “rules” miss a fundamental shift in the way we need to be thinking about CTAs. There’s something wrong with the word “call-to-action” that focuses us (as marketers) on ourselves and not on the needs of our customers.This manner of thinking treats the audience as if they’re a mass of mindless peons, just waiting for us to command them what to do next.Simply put, I think a call-to-action should be an act of customer... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “The way people engage with Google search engine result pages (SERPs) has changed significantly over the past decade, according to a recent report from Mediative.The report was based on data from an eye-tracking study of 53 participants who were asked to complete 43 common search tasks, such as looking for an apartment to rent in a particular neighborhood. All searches were conducted on desktop computers in Canada using the Google search engine.A similar study conducted by Mediative in 2005  found that users tended to focus their gaze on the “Golden Triangle”—the... [...]

Dana DiTomaso says, “Metrics are really only effective markers of business success if they’re measuring your progress toward your organization’s goals. How, though, do we make the leap from goals to reportable metrics? In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Dana DiTomaso (a partner at Kick Point and a MozCon 2014 speaker!) walks us through that process”.How to Convert a Client’s Goals into Reportable MetricsMOZ Blog [...]

Steve Dille says, “By their very nature, email and mobile marketing campaigns produce large amounts of data. This information can be a gold mine for knowing what’s working and what’s not working with your messaging programs, especially when it comes to figuring out how many eyeballs actually see your content and how recipients are acting on your messages.The machine-to-machine data generated through email and text messaging campaigns was long seen as relevant primarily to systems administrators and IT professionals responsible for maintaining sending infrastructure and remediating bounces... [...]

Nicole Rende says, “Many savvy marketers know that SEO is not a one-time service and should be an ongoing marketing strategy. Why? Moz reports that Google makes over 500 tweaks to its algorithm every year–that’s more than one per day!As you can imagine, all these changes can have an impact on your ranking. So, keeping up with the changes and modifying your SEO strategy is definitely important.But while most marketers know they need to constantly monitor and tweak the SEO elements of their website, the question of “how often” is oftentimes a puzzling one”.How... [...]

Dr. Peter J. Meyers says, “Last week, drowned out by the Panda 4.1 rollout, the  MozCast Feature Graph detected a significant jump in the presence of answer boxes (+42% day-over-day, up to +44% on September 30th).This measurement includes all types of “answer” boxes – direct answers, stock quotes, weather forecasts, box scores, and even the new, attributed answer boxes. Digging into the data, it appears that almost the entirety of the jump is in the new style of answer boxes”.More Google Answer Boxes, with Bonus Experiment!MOZ Blog [...]

Greg Sterling says, “In another blow to Google’s privacy policy in Europe, the German data-protection regulator Johannes Caspar is ordering the company to change and limit how it uses data from its various online properties. Google’s consolidated privacy policy has faced heavy criticism by European privacy officials since its debut two years ago.There’s a Europe-wide effort going on to limit Google’s ability to use data without offering explicit disclosures and opt-out opportunities for individuals. The proposed changes would alter Google’s ability to collect and draw upon audience... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Advanced Web Ranking has released a study showing fresh data on the click-through-rate from Google’s organic search results. The data was taken from Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries reports from large accounts back in July 2014.On average, 71.33% of searches resulted in a page one Google organic click. Page two and three get only 5.59% of the clicks. On the first page alone, the first 5 results account for 67.60% of all the clicks and the results from 6 to 10 account for only 3.73%”.A New Click Through Rate Study For Google Organic ResultsMarketing Land [...]

Jon Shawcross has relaunched SEO Enigma, his award-winning techniques for SEO enhancements for your website.This version he is calling SEO Enigma Reloaded, and it will help you raise the rank of your site through careful tweaks that get the attention of the search engines.This course is filled with solid techniques and tips that build your long-term rank. It doesn’t have so-called “loopholes” that may have temporary effect on your rank but, in the end, will be discovered by Google and result in a drop in your rank.Shawcross runs a professional SEO company and now is sharing... [...]

Graham Charlton says, “Panda 4.1, as it has been dubbed, was released by Google last week with the aim of identifying low quality content more easily. According to Google, it affects between 3% and 5% of search queries and will result ‘in a greater diversity of high-quality small- and medium-sized sites ranking higher’.I asked Marcus Tober, CTO and co-founder of SearchMetrics, about the new update”.Panda 4.1: what’s it all about?‘Econsultancy’ Blog [...]