Every business wants to grow, but acquiring new customers isn’t easy. If it was, every business would be a success.
Thankfully, the internet has made it easier than ever to connect with new potential customers and grow your audience. The catch is that you can’t keep using the same strategies you relied upon in a few years ago. Instead, you have to get a new strategy for the digital age.
To help you get started forming a new winning strategy for customer acquisition in 2016, Eliv8 has shared an infographic that will help you effectively grow your business.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-12-28 15:51:262015-12-28 15:51:267 Winning Strategies For Growing Your Business In 2016 [Infographic]
Christmas is almost here and the New Year isn’t far behind, which means it is time for the annual end-of-the-year lists to show us what people were searching for this year. Yesterday, Google released their “Year In Search” video and list to highlight the most important topics of 2015.
The most searched for topic of the year is also possibly the most tragic; Google counted over 897 million searches about Paris this year, largely due to two major terrorist attacks in January and November. Particularly, in the immediate wake of the November attacks, Google saw the most searches about the city ever performed in the search engine’s history.
The Year In Search list also features several top news events such as Hurricane Patricia, the discovery of water on Mars, the terrorist group ISIS, and the earthquake in Nepal.
While the end of the year list features several events that united us through tragedy, it also shows the more lighthearted topics that caught our collective hearts and minds over the past year.
“Star Wars” was a huge topic of discussion for the internet, with more than 155 million searches before its world premiere. However, the most searched for film of the year was actually another highly anticipated sequel. “Jurassic World” took the lead spot, although Google didn’t detail exactly how many searches it received.
With all the focus on Donald Trump these past few months, you might expect him to lead the most searched for public figures, but The Donald only came in seventh place behind Charlie Sheen and the Orange Is The New Black character Ruby Rose.
Instead, the three most talked about public figures of the year were Lamar Odom, UFC fighter Ronda Rousey, and Caitlyn Jenner, who saw a huge spike in interest following her gender transition announcement on ABC News’ “20/20” in April.
You can see Google’s inspirational Year In Search video below, or you can browse all the Year In Search lists at Google Trends.
https://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/Google-Logo.jpg00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-12-17 15:40:022015-12-17 15:40:02Google’s Year In Search Lists Show Us What We Were Searching For In 2015
2015 is coming to a close, and Google has begun their end-of-the-year celebrations by highlighting the most popular videos of the year. The past year has been an especially big one for YouTube, which has been celebrating its 10th birthday all year long.
It has also been the first year that YouTube has seen true competition. Facebook’s video platform has given the service a run for its money, by giving videos a wider platform and more prominent place in news feeds.
Despite this challenge, YouTube continues to be one of the largest platforms in the world, and is still synonymous with internet video. The past year, the service has helped drive a dance craze that swept the nation, become the new home of Super Bowl ads, and helped promote equality with these videos:
To help reminisce about 2015, YouTube also gathered over 150 YouTube creators for the latest installation of YouTube’s annual Rewind video, showcasing everything from dance prodigies, TV personalities, and even an insane plastic ball fight.
YouTube is certain to be a huge part of all of our lives for the years to come and these videos show the wide variety of videos you can find across the site. If you have a video you want seen in 2016, especially business related videos, YouTube is the place to look.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-12-09 14:59:192015-12-09 14:59:19Google Celebrates 2015 With The Top YouTube Videos of The Year
While Black Friday sales are in a slump, a new king of the holiday shopping season is rising. The results Cyber Monday are coming in and estimates suggest this year broke e-commerce sales records for the biggest day of online sales in US history.
According to Adobe, online sales hit over $3 billion dollars on Cyber Monday. Their report says 200 million visits to 4,500 retail websites generated $3.06 billion, rising 16 percent from last year.
Approximately 26 percent of those sales came from mobile devices, accounting for $799 million in sales. The majority of those sales ($575 million) came from Apple iOS devices. In comparison, Android devices drove just $219 million in mobile sales.
ChannelAdvisor and Custora have found similar results in their analysis of Cyber Monday sales.
ChannelAdvisor says Cyber Monday sales leaped 18 percent year over year on a same-store-sales basis. They found mobile devices accounted for 43 percent of traffic, however their results also found consumers are still relying on desktops to make the final purchase. Their analysis says 24 percent of sales came from smartphones.
Custora’s findings estimate e-commerce revenue climbed 16.2 percent from last year, with tablets and phones driving 26.9 percent of all Cyber Monday sales.
The notable increase in Cyber Monday sales may be due to bigger discounts than expected, with an average discount of 21.5 percent.
Another notable report from HookLogic says the average order value among advertisers on its platform hit $134 on Cyber Monday, just below the $137 AOV seen on Black Friday. Interestingly, carts had fewer items on Cyber Monday, which suggests consumers waited for the online sales to make their purchase.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-12-02 15:36:322015-12-02 15:36:32Cyber Monday Breaks E-Commerce Record For Most Online Sales
As the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens grows closer, Google is getting in on the excitement. The company recently announced its new #ChooseYourSide campaign, and indicated it was planning a number of Star Wars Easter eggs ahead of the film’s release on December 18.
Well, you don’t have to wait for the Easter eggs to start popping up. The first surprise for Star Wars fans who use Chrome has already been found.
Just Google the famous first line from the original 1977 Star Wars movie (“a long time ago in a galaxy far far away”), and you will be treated to a page in the style of the series iconic opening crawl. Instead of an summary of intergalactic politics and jedi-related events however, the scrawl shows search results over a Star Wars-themed background.
You can find out more about the #ChooseYourSide campaign over at Marketing Land. Fans will have to keep waiting for the film’s release, but keep your eyes peeled for more exciting Easter eggs in the meantime.
For the first time, Google has released the full version of their Search Quality Rating Guidelines, a document used by Google Search Quality Rates to help determine how to rate the search results they are testing.
The document has become public in the past, through several leaks. Just this week, the October version was leaked. The search engine also released an abridged version in 2013, but now the company has decided to officially release the entire 160-page version previously only available to Search Quality Raters.
Google’s Mimi Underwood said that “ratings from evaluators do not determine individual site rankings, but are used help us understand our experiments.” She added, “The evaluators base their ratings on guidelines we give them; the guidelines reflect what Google thinks search users want.”
As expected, Underwood also implied the document will be updated over time, “as search, and how people use it, changes.”
You can download the full Search Quality Rating Guidelines here.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-11-20 15:14:222015-11-20 15:14:22Google Shares Search Quality Rating Guidelines For The First Time
Black Friday is a crucial day for businesses across the nation, but for many e-retailers it can be hard to stand out from the noise and connect with their audience. That is much easier to do however, if you go where all the shoppers already are.
A new study funded by Pinterest suggests the popular social media site is the best place to reach holiday shoppers, with more Black Friday users than any other site.
According to the statistics from marketing researcher CivicScience, Pinterest users shop more on Black Friday than the average online user. Not only that, but they spend much more time on the site planning their purchases than the average online user. Pinterest users spend four times more on toys and games, three times more on housewares, clothing and accessories, and 2.2 times more on electronics and media.
Additionally, Pinners are 50 percent more likely to spend the most on Black Friday at specialty stores and local businesses, meaning the site is especially beneficial for small businesses.
Along with the findings from the CivicScience study, Pinterest released some other holiday shopping statistics in their recent blog post. They say Pinners have increased their Black Friday and Cyber Monday-related activity. Pins related to the big shopping days have risen 140 percent in the past year. Two million of Pinterest’s 100 million active users have already Pinned about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and the company cites 17.7 million gift Pins posted to the network.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-11-19 14:50:252015-11-19 14:50:25Pinterest Users Shop The Most On Black Friday
Like Google, Bing has been increasingly focused on delivering a mobile-friendly version of the web to its growing number of mobile users. Now, Bing has released a tool to help webmasters ensure their site meets the search engine’s standards for mobile-friendliness.
Specifically, the tool reviews your site based on the following criteria to decide if your site is mobile-friendly:
Viewport and Zoom control configuration
Width of page content
Readability of text on the page
Spacing of links and other elements on the page
Use of incompatible plug-ins
The tool will also notify webmasters if any of the above criteria were inaccessible or blocked, so you can remedy the problem.
Like the tool Google offered shortly before it released its “Mobile-Friendly Algorithm”, Bing’s tool delivers an overall verdict as to whether you site would be considered mobile-friendly by the search engine.
It will also explain what issues it detects and explain why your page fails, if that is the case.
Both Bing and Google’s tools reportedly detect essentially the same things, with little difference between the ultimate results. However, Bing’s tool is significantly faster and easier to use.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-11-13 16:02:442015-11-13 16:02:44Bing Launches Its New Mobile-Friendly Tool For Testing Websites
Your homepage is the face of your business. It is the first thing most visitors see when they visit your site for the first time and it is where you make your first impressions. If you already have a solid homepage with killer copy, that can be great news. But, there is a good chance your site is missing one of the several things users expect to see when they come to your site.
Having a homepage without critical features and elements is a bit like having a mouth full of broken, chipped, and missing teeth. No matter how hard you try to smile and make a good impression, a lot of people are going to be put off.
While dental work can be costly and painful, fixing up your homepage doesn’t have to be. HubSpot put together an infographic – seen below – detailing 12 features and elements that are absolutely critical to have on your homepage, and the majority are easy to implement without needing to call in the pros.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2015-11-11 14:39:092015-11-11 14:39:09The Most Important Elements Every Company Needs On Their Homepage [Infographic]
While it is increasingly important for your site to be mobile-friendly, there are some unique risks to running a mobile-friendly site webmasters should be aware of. Google has been encouraging sites to implement mobile-friendly strategies, but it is also cracking down on mobile-only redirects if they are used for fraudulent or deceptive purposes.
Most of the time, mobile-only redirects are used to send mobile users to content they requested in a mobile-friendly format, however some use the redirects deceptively to direct smartphone traffic to unwanted content. In some cases these deceptive redirects can send smartphone users to entirely different websites than the one they requested.
The majority of webmasters aim to use redirects properly, but it has recently been found that deceptive redirects can find their ways onto websites without the webmaster ever knowing. This can potentially happen one of two ways:
Advertising: A malicious script installed to display ads may redirect mobile users to a different site without the webmasters knowledge.
Hacking: Some hackers set up redirects to spammy or malicious domains for mobile users only.
While it has become known that these redirects can be created without a webmaster’s awareness, Google has recently made it clear they will continue penalizing sites with these deceptive redirects. Google’s webmaster guidelines explicitly forbid these types of redirects and the search engine says it will enact manual penalties when they are discovered.
Thankfully, there is an incredibly easy test you can do right now to make sure your site hasn’t come down with a case of deceptive redirects. Just search for it in Google on your phone and click on the results.
Google also encourages webmasters to monitor their sites for user complaints as well as regularly reviewing analytics data for unusual activity such as any sudden drops in mobile traffic.
If you do find any evidence of deceptive mobile-only redirects, Google recommends checking Search Console for any warnings about site hacks. If you don’t see any alerts, it is possible there may be an issue with third-party scripts on your site. To figure out which one is causing problems, you will have to go through and disable them one at a time until the problem is resolved.
