SMBMSP #82 – Social + Search = A Whole New Ballgame for SEO & SEM

 
I recently had the honor of presenting to the Social Media Breakfast group at “SMBMSP #82 – Social + Search = A Whole New Ballgame for SEO & SEM” along with Aaron Weiche on September 11th, 2015 at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota. My presentation for this session is entitled “Search & Social: a Match.com made in heaven or Tinder’s awkward hook-up?“.

Here is the full powerpoint presentation for you to reference. I hope you enjoy it!

Google AdWords Ad Extension Structured Snippets

Structured Snippets Guide Table of Contents

• Preface and Launch Notes
• How To Find Structured Snippets
• The Makeup of a Structured Snippet

– Headers
– Values
– Device Preference
– Start/End Dates and Scheduling

• Account, Campaign & Ad Group Level
• Running Multiple Structured Snippets & Order Priority
• Examples
• Review Process Time-frame
• Final Thoughts

Preface

For the past several years Google AdWords has been releasing new ad extensions that were meant to expand the details that advertisers can “Add-On” to their various ads. Ad Extensions including Sitelinks, Callouts and Review Extensions, while limited in their own right, each provide more ad copy for ads that have an ad rank high enough to be listed in the top 3 spots of search results.

Google AdWords Text Ad with 4 Ad Extensions

We have seen several WordPress sites that have been hacked recently, and it’s been ugly for SEO. One particular client with a WordPress installation had 80 pages inserted into their site, and the worst part is we didn’t know because we couldn’t see the pages in the admin!

Now, I don’t know how in the world they hacked the site, nor how the heck they created pages that don’t show up in the admin, but I’m going to go over how to check your own site for this, and how to remove those pages and steps you can take to hopefully keep them gone.

Has My WordPress Site Been Hacked?

I’m frustrated as I do a multitude of searches this morning and search after search after search shows this new 3-pack for local listings across various cities in search results. I’m frustrated as a search marketer, but I’m even more frustrated for my clients and those small businesses that have worked so hard to gain trust and authority and earned their spot on page one of Google.

 
+Finally. “Finally”. [Finally]!

It appears that after years of providing a clunky and unintuitive keyword segmentation experience, that the Google AdWords Keyword Tab is, yes, finally getting a much needed usability facelift.

We spotted a different layout this week in a new client account that streamlines access to the different keyword reports that most PPC managers use on a daily basis:

New Google AdWords Keywords Tab Segmentation

Time for the 2nd annual “Takeaways from MozCon” SWAG edition. This year the competition for the best / most unique SWAG was fierce. We made it through to the last day with everything they could throw at us. Let’s not waste any time, let’s dig right in and review the 38+ items from MozCon (38 plus because I counted multiple items, like stickers, as one).

38+ (literal) Takeaways from MozCon 2015

Before the 2015 #MnSummit, our favorite local conference, wouldn’t it be fun to turn back time and see what the speakers had to say when they joined Twitter? I sure do. So let’s do it:

First Tweets from 57 PPC Authorities #HeroConf 2015 Edition

 
In honor of #ppcchat and one of my favorite conferences, I thought we’d take a look at how some of my favorite people got started on Twitter. I don’t think I really need to say more, so just take a stroll down Twitter memory lane…

57 First Tweets

For those of you visiting Portland for the first time, you may have heard a few things about our city but were maybe afraid to ask if they were true. First off, the answer is yes, we do like to keep it weird (and beered) here.

Yes, it rains…a lot and us locals don’t use umbrellas (we own hoodies).  Yes, IFC’s Portlandia is sometime a little too accurate of a representation on how we live.  Yes, we are obsessed with beer, biking, coffee and the Trailblazers. And, yes, it’s really green here and you will find that the air we breath is some of the best in the country.  Beyond being where dreams of the 90’s are still alive, Portland has also become a destination city for restaurants, food carts, local beers, distilleries and wines.  No wonder we were one of the most moved to destinations in the United States.

So in an effort to ensure that your visit to the Rose City (or Rip City to us Portland Trailblazer fans) is done right, this native Portlander has put together a guide on where you need to eat and drink in Portland while at the Hero Conf.

I’ve got some great spots located close to the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower, along with some other destinations worth the cab fare, where you can enjoy a meal, find a great happy hour special, grab a cocktail or quench your thirst with one of Portland’s fine craft beers.

April 21, 2015….that was the deadline. Google has flat out said “mobilize your site now or we’ll kick you off the Internets!”

OK, so maybe they didn’t say it like that verbatim, but more or less. My favorite co-worker with a name that starts with C, Chris Lister, covered Google’s announcement and what it means to you in depth with his post “Google’s New Mobile Friendly Algorithm Update“. So I won’t bore you with those details.

What I will bore you with is what we (and by we I mean I) did to our own site to make it pass the Mobile-Friendly Test. If you’ve got what it takes, you can follow along and attempt to do it on your own site.

Forewarning! This isn’t Going to be Easy!

Assuming you’ve already run your site through that test and have seen that it failed, what can you do? Well if you don’t know anything about HTML or CSS…nothing…you’re screwed. Close down your business, it’s washed up.