According to Lee Odden, the SEO concept of "fresh content" has been distorted by a convoluted game of telephone—one person giving information to the next, each with his or her own interpretation, until the final person receives a definition quite unlike the original. "I'm sure the genesis was something like: Someone ... more

During the hot summer months, email marketers often despair of subscribers whose minds are somewhere else. "So how can you make your email marketing messages matter to office workers counting the minutes before happy hour on sidewalk patios?" asks Ajay Goel at the Webbiquity blog. "Or busy moms and dads ... more

American businesses spent $5 billion reaching the Hispanic market in 2008, and for good reason. By 2013, Latinos will control 10 percent—or a staggering $1.4 trillion—of the country's buying power. So reports Chanin Ballance in an article at MarketingProfs. "That puts Hispanics ahead of all other minority groups, including African ... more

Want to increase traffic to your site? A recent article at the SEO Traffic Spider recommends using social-media optimization (SMO) as a highly effective method for search-engine optimization of any website. As the name implies, you optimize your site by advertising it through social-media sites and online communities. According to the ... more

It's been a long time coming, writes Dylan Boyd at Email Wars, but with "new systems of marketing automation we are finally gaining ground to creating trigger-based campaigns on actions, behavior and timing." Boyd provides a thorough rundown on various trigger-based campaigns you might employ. Here are a few highlights to ... more

In a post at the Online Marketing blog, Lee Odden notes that one of the biggest fears for website owners is a sudden drop in search-engine rankings. Case in point: Google's recent 'Mayday' algorithmic change affecting long-tail searches (see Google Webmaster Matt Cutts' video explanation). It left many webmasters up-in-arms ... more

If a subject line gets truncated on its way to your subscriber's inbox, cautions Mark Brownlow at Email Marketing Reports, it can do more than cause a "wry smile" or a "little embarrassment." It can cause outright confusion, or it can tell your customers something you didn't even mean to ... more

"Facebook has more than 400 million active users who collectively spend more time on the platform than on any other website in the world, sharing detailed information about their likes, dislikes, and preferences," writes Matt Lawson at MarketingProfs. In other words, the social networking powerhouse is a potential bonanza for search ... more

It's the social weapon you just don't hear enough about: SlideShare. At first glance, it comes across as a mere archive for uploading presentations, but oh—it's so much more than that! When used correctly, SlideShare can help you cleverly boost your messaging, your brand, your very corporate presence online. Consider these four ways ... more

Your B2B email marketing program might have a good reason for sending a steady stream of one-size-fits-all messages to prospects. "The idea being that by keeping these folks exposed to your company's name and logo, you'd stay 'top of mind,'" notes Ardath Albee at Marketing Interactions. "That process is now ... more

"The true test of pursuing either an SEO campaign or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising (or both)," writes Scott Buresh in a recent Pro article at MarketingProfs, "is knowing that it all boils down to your company philosophy, return on investment (ROI) objectives, budget, and numerous other monetary and marketing factors." To help ... more

"It doesn't matter how great your video is," writes Larry Kim in a Pro article at MarketingProfs. "[I]f people don't know it exists, it doesn't have much business value." That means you have to optimize your YouTube video for maximum visibility. So, how do you get the crowd to turn ... more

As email becomes ever more prominent in the typical marketing mix, we can expect a few slip-ups and oversights. According to Max Kalehoff—writing at the AttentionMax blog—telltale symptoms of lax email practices include an ignorance of basic etiquette and less-than-rigorous spam compliance. "I'm not going to out anyone (including a prominent technology ... more

"Adding social-media icons to your email campaigns … takes just a few seconds," writes Jim Hitch at the Emma blog, "but it can increase your reach and help you identify your most avid followers. Who knew all of that could be as simple as pushing a couple of buttons?" According ... more

In a post at Copyblogger, Sonia Simone put an interesting twist on the perennial question "Ginger or Mary Ann?" by asking whether your blog is the sexy-starlet or the wholesome girl-next-door type. Ginger, for example, wasn't going to let something like a shipwreck interfere with her glamorous persona. "It takes some ... more

"Trust is one the hardest things to build into the 'blink' factor on a website," says Patsi Krakoff in a recent post at the Writing on the Web blog. "It's one thing to grab readers' attention with great headlines and clever tag lines. It's another level of challenge when the ... more

Does your marketing content tell buyers what they want to hear—or only what you want to say? Writing at the Marketing Interactions blog, Ardath Albee reports on a study that found content is relevant to a customer's needs only 42 percent of the time—and a lack of compelling content reduces ... more

By now, it's pretty clear to most people what works in the blogosphere—and what doesn't. Not everyone, however, has caught on. Accordingly, Frank Days used a post at Tangyslice to discuss the functions a blog simply won't serve. To help these extremely late adopters, Days provided a list of what ... more

Time to start thinking "i" again—this time for the iPad. Like it or not, it's a mobile device, and 120,000 were preordered in the first 24 hours of its release in April. And as of May 3, iPad had already hit 1 million units sold, and 12 million iPad apps ... more

OK, let's admit it. We've all sat through slide presentations monopolized by the tyranny of one conviction-ridden idea. They make us kind of crazy, right? And doesn't a more social world merit a more social PowerPoint? Well, here's some good news: Now you can breathe real-time life into your next ... more

As a longtime reader of GQ magazine, Dylan Boyd subscribed to The Hound—the magazine's recently launched email newsletter—with high expectations. "So as I opened the email and took a gander," he writes at The Email Wars, "I was more than greatly disappointed to get what I would associate with a ... more

"We are often asked how long it will take before an optimized website will start showing up in the search-engine results," writes Lauren Hobson at Five Sparrows, "but of course that's a difficult question with a complicated answer." (Deep breath, kids.) The truth is, Hobson says, it all depends on ... more

Earlier this year, eBay invited six French fashion bloggers to engage in a crafty campaign called Wardrobe Commando. The objective: The bloggers were to select one reader each for a full-on fashion revamp. Hailing from different regions of France, each blogger created a video of herself consulting with her reader of ... more

In a post at the Modern B2B Marketing blog, Maria Pergolino offers sage advice for, well, writing a post at a B2B marketing blog. "A challenge many B2B organizations face is consistently creating content that's unique, relevant and resourceful—all at the same time," she notes. So, to help B2B marketers find ... more

"I receive email for very different reasons than others in my life," writes Kara Trivunovic at the Email Experience Council blog. "I subscribe to just about any email I can, because I like to see what people are doing. More specifically, how marketers are targeting their customers, leveraging data, addressing ... more