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Last month at the 99U conference in NYC, I had the opportunity to hear Joe Gebbia, founder of Airbnb, a website that connects travellers with unique accommodations. He talked about taking his idea of Airbnb and making it real. It’s actually a great story, read it here. Airbnb started by filling a need. People wanted [...]

You’ve probably heard (far too many times by now) about social media strategy, and its importance to your overall marketing strategy. When you search “social media strategy,” you may find yourself instantly lost in the sheer magnitude of information. There are articles, blog posts, infographics, and videos from many sources, which you don’t know the [...]

For many business owners, social media marketing feels like a puzzle: on the one hand, hundreds of millions of people are using social sites on a daily basis; on the other, there aren’t a lot of proven ways to attract customers from social media other than pay-per-click ads on Facebook or promoted posts on Twitter, [...]

If you haven’t seen this commercial from Kmart, you’re in for a chuckle. The company uses the proximity of the word “ship” to another choice 4-letter word to their advantage to explain their ship-to-store services in a memorable, viral kind of way. So, what do you think? Have they gone too far, or is their [...]

Matt Cutts, who has developed a reputation as being Google’s unofficial spokesperson for algorithm updates, recently mentioned at SXSW that one thing to look out for in the future is a de-emphasis of what he called “low-quality merchants” in search results. In other words, if Google doesn’t think your e-commerce store is reputable, then it [...]

Imagine you are the groundskeeper for a public park, and you have a problem: despite plentiful, conveniently placed garbage cans, your visitors still throw their trash on the ground. You add more trash cans: nothing changes. You huff and puff about personal responsibility, civic duty and the common good, but it gets you nowhere.  The [...]

In the world of web content, PDFs are the underdog. Although PDF files like white papers, product manuals, and brochures usually contain relevant, useful information, they are often overlooked and under-optimized. Search marketers continue to debate the value of PDF optimization, but search engines like Google and Bing insist that most PDF content is indexed, [...]

Earlier this month, Google announced a serious upgrade to AdWords called Enhanced Campaigns. According to Google, “This is a first step to help you more simply and smartly manage your campaigns in today’s multi-device world.” Of course, in typical Google fashion, AdWords is ALWAYS evolving but this update is truly a game changer. Does this [...]

In January, Facebook announced a new feature called “Graph Search.” Greeted with inquisitive buzz from news media, everybody had an opinion, from the The New York Times to local newspapers to niche technology publications. The big question: Would Graph Search replace Google? The jury is still out on that one, but the popular answer seems [...]