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Search
- August 23, 2012
3 reasons to combine the power of PPC and SEO
Olympic athletes make use of cross-training for competitive events, and savvy businesses make use of cross-marketing in digital media for the marketplace.
One way to cross-market is to combine both Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaigns and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Using these tools on their own is effective (see my post: PPC: not as scary as you think), but combining PPC and SEO–now that’s power.
Here are 3 reasons why.
1. Improved click-through rates (CTR) and more compelling copy
Compelling copy is key in any marketing campaign and it can be tested through PPC ad copy. Use your PPC results to find effective keywords and the calls to action that yield the best click-through rates and conversions. Now use them to beef up PPC campaigns and SEO meta tags (titles and content descriptions).
Better content not only improves your search engine rankings but it also captures customers. Excellent content takes them to your website instead of your competitors’. And that means both higher CTR and conversions.
TIP: Borrow proven copy from PPC ads to maximize SEO CTR and...
- August 21, 2012
What I Learned from 3 Days in the Future: my trip to Hyper Island
Before my first day on staff at Domain7, I took one week between jobs for a little R&R: rest and research.
In a Fast Company article titled “The Future of Advertising” I read about advertising and marketing leaders going to crash-course workshops for digital-learning. The goal? To emerge as a thinker and practitioner prepared for today’s (and tomorrow’s!) digital-marketing world.
Although I work in web for a progressive technology company, I want to be a believer. I work in digital marketing, but often lack the clairvoyance to imagine the future with the conviction that it will be better. Would three days at Hyper Island help? I went to New York to find out.
Located at 250 Hudson Street––also known as home of TED and ...
- August 15, 2012
PPC: not as scary as you think!
Not that long ago, marketing meant investing in expensive print publications, only to risk discovering a typo the moment it’s off the press.
The web gives you so much freedom to monitor and iterate your marketing campaigns, without a huge, risky investment. And yet, so many businesses are scared of Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns or just don’t grasp the benefits of using them.
In my experience, PPC campaigns are a part of any well thought-out marketing campaign and almost invariably bring you more business.
There are lots of myths about PPC. Businesses seem to think they are:
- too complicated. (But in fact they’re fairly simple to set up!)
- too time consuming. (After initial setup, PPC campaigns drive leads to you—saving major BizDev time.)
- too difficult to budget. (Actually, you get to set your daily budget that can be lowered or increased at any time.)
It would be a big mistake to let fear of the unknown to keep you from attracting leads that are ripe for conversion. It’s my belief that with a little understanding PPC really isn’t so scary.
Here are answers to some of the questions I hear all the...
- August 13, 2012
PhoneGap: where mobile web meets native app
Smartphones and tablets are overtaking traditional computers in sales and usage, so it’s no surprise this consumer shift is driving industry interest in mobile development.
At Domain7, we've taken a stand on the mobile web vs. app debate, and we still believe the web trumps apps in terms of cost, speed and reach.
Every once in a while, however, there’s a use-case that requires native smartphone technology. In these cases, we still think it’s essential to retain those important aspects of openness and cross-platform compatibility.
Enter PhoneGap.
PhoneGap is a tool that combines the power of the web with the power of phones and tablets—their hardware (camera,...
- August 8, 2012
Google puts the hammer down
In case you missed it, Google has officially stated they encourage and favor responsive design, and otherwise, device-specific markup from the same URL.
According to Google, it makes it "easier for Google’s algorithms to assign the indexing properties to your content." Read the rest of Google's recommendations for building websites for mobile devices right here.
- August 7, 2012
Privacy in the App World
There’s a saying in economics that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”. In the case of free apps, there may be a price we’re paying that’s not in dollars, but information.
I used to roll my eyes at “Apps”. There are apps for everything it seems. I was a browser purist with a mindset of “if there is a website for it, why would I download an app?” However, I encountered a few problems with my purist ways:
- A lot of companies simply don’t have good mobile sites. This is getting better, but it’s just not there yet.
- Mobile websites don’t always respond well enough. They feel clunky and slow. It’s amazing how irritated I get with a website that doesn’t respond quickly.
Lately I find myself installing more apps because of those issues. However, I’ve started looking at the privacy settings on these apps and am getting more and more concerned with what I’m actually giving away with each “free” app. Why some of these apps need to know “my personal information”, or “phone call data” is beyond me.
Here's a brief example of the...
- August 1, 2012
Thinking about "intermodal" UX
Although it has existed in Google’s Chrome/Android ecosystem for months, the practice of syncing one's browser tabs between PCs and mobile devices is likely to spike in familiarity and popularity when it is introduced in Apple’s products (OS X Mountain Lion and and iOS 6) later this year.
I’ve not heard a term used to describe this device-hopping behavior, so for the purposes of this post I’m stealing from the transportion realm and caling it an “intermodal” user experience (IUX). On the web—rather than a person switching from a train to a boat to complete a journey—intermodal refers to a user moving seamlessly from one device to another in order to complete an online task.
Whatever you call it, this behavior is a trend worth anticipating. What opportunities does it create for more meaningful experiences? How will people leverage it to solve new problems? When and why will it break your website entirely?
I'd love to hear what you think. Here are some of my own early musings on IUX:
- This type of browsing will likely be an edge-case for a...