Why Content Marketing is a Definitive Method for Success in 2014

Over the course of the past year, content marketing has really taken the spotlight. While the importance of quality content has been preached for a long time, in 2013 it proved to be the talk of the digital marketing industry and beyond.

A regular marketing tool for many companies, content creation became a prime method for success in 2013 and will become a definitive one in 2014.

While "content" is a common term, the past year has consisted of truly digging in and finding the precise definition and methods that go along with it. As a result of this yearlong brainstorm came a good amount of content strategy insights.

What We Realized About Content in 2013Content is More Than Just Text

Content doesn't just have to be text. In fact, it can be a lot more than that.

Think about the various ways people learn. Some individuals are kinesthetic and hands-on while others are auditory learners and can take something straight from what they here, while a great many are visual may prefer to read something straight from a page or on a screen.

Content marketing is no different. It should be a mixture of types that can adhere to diverse learning styles.

For example, using video or even an infographic as a form of content can be an extremely beneficial and noteworthy way to communicate your brand and help you stand far apart from your competitors. Not only are you encompassing the auditory piece, but you're also providing a visual outlet.

We've also learned that shorter content isn't necessarily the be all and end all, but rather as long as you are communicating your message and your brand, content can be any length necessary for what you're trying to accomplish.

Mobile is a Go!

In 2013 we've really started to confirm the importance of mobile, and this includes content as well. How many people out there search for things via their mobile browser, specifically when on the go? I know I do.

Creating content that is effective on a mobile device can absolutely increase your chances of success overall; by being represented properly on the devices and platforms that individuals have access to, the better success rate you will have in the long-term.

Creating distinctive content that is suitable for specific devices while sticking with your niche and holding the interest of your followers, you'll be that much more likely to achieve a content marketing victory.

Content is a Piece of the Big Picture

In the past year, we've realized that content isn't a lone unit and as such, many have begun to implement it as a part of their digital strategies as a whole.

Rather than creating content and simply hoping that your customers will be attracted to it, we've begun to truly look into the heart of our followers, in turn discovering the content best suited to them and creating it and from there, delving into promotion via social and beyond.

Tell Your Story With Content

Not only that, but we've realized that content isn't just about discussing a product that you may carry. Rather, it's about using content to communicate who you are as a brand.

You can easily tell your story by way of content; write a blog post with a personal touch, create a video showing your daily grind. By being transparent to your followers, you will likely gain and even greater audience by making known who you are and what you want to accomplish with your business.

Keep Promoting Your Content

While 2013 has been a year of new and interesting content, we've realized that just because something may be older and created a while back doesn't mean that it won't be of interest currently. By re-promoting your older content, you'll be able to bring your audience back to something that they may have forgotten about or missed entirely.

So just because something may be considered "outdated," don't let it fall to the wayside; keep on promoting it and see where it goes.

Where Are We Going in 2014?Content is Worth the Investment

In 2014, the realization of the dire importance of content within business models is going to continue. Budgets are have already allocated more funds to content strategies both in the U.S. and around the world, and content budgets for 2014 have already shown total increases.

While some may assume that since content marketing is newer and more unique than traditional marketing, that it will cost more. But, this isn't the case.

Content marketing doesn't necessarily cost as much as traditional marketing does. Plus, you will most likely give you even more leads and sales as a result.

Right now many businesses are taking a look at their content efforts from 2013 and deciding upon which strategies worked, which didn't, and how they can improve upon their tactics in the New Year.

We're going to start looking more into our audiences and finding more locations in which to promote our content. Many people are seeking to just get their content out there and aren't necessarily digging deep to find out who the best followers would be.

Also consider the number of content-specific conferences out there. This number has skyrocketed; and what does this tell us? Simply that people want to learn about content; how to create it, how to be successful, and how it can help their businesses to prosper.

'Content Combat'

With so many companies increasing their content investments in 2014, it could become a true battle for search visibility, even if the content you create is of high quality. So what can you do?

Make sure that your content is unique and the true voice of your brand. Make sure you know the ins and outs of your audience and are speaking directly to them and their interests with each and every piece of content that you create.

Strategies on the Way

Rather than aimlessly throwing content out on the web, people and businesses are going to start working with actual strategies for content creation and promotion. This includes documenting and tracking everything in order to locate successes and failures.

Use an editorial calendar to keep track of your content in 2014. By planning everything out on a calendar, you'll ensure that you keep everything in line with your goals.

If you weren't before, measure your results; whether you do this with an old-fashioned spreadsheet or with the help of Google Analytics. By measuring and analyzing your success, you'll be able to decide where you want to definitively go with your content in the future.

Google's Influence on Content: Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird

All of Google's updates in 2013 have proven how important content is, and how important it will continue to be as we enter into 2014.

Content in 2014 is going to be a lot more like a good old conversation that you might have with a co-worker in the hallway. Thanks to the Hummingbird algorithm, Google searches are akin to the way that we naturally speak, so content is going to be forced to adjust to these conversational searches.

Here's to Content in 2014

No matter what day, month, or year it is, content is in the works, and in a big way. A big picture word nowadays, content has truly driven the industry into new realms in 2013, and 2014 will be sure to be another adventurous year. So here's to content in 2014 and the many places it will continue to take us.

What are your predictions for the year to come?

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.

Why Content Marketing is a Definitive Method for Success in 2014

Over the course of the past year, content marketing has really taken the spotlight. While the importance of quality content has been preached for a long time, in 2013 it proved to be the talk of the digital marketing industry and beyond.

A regular marketing tool for many companies, content creation became a prime method for success in 2013 and will become a definitive one in 2014.

While "content" is a common term, the past year has consisted of truly digging in and finding the precise definition and methods that go along with it. As a result of this yearlong brainstorm came a good amount of content strategy insights.

What We Realized About Content in 2013Content is More Than Just Text

Content doesn't just have to be text. In fact, it can be a lot more than that.

Think about the various ways people learn. Some individuals are kinesthetic and hands-on while others are auditory learners and can take something straight from what they here, while a great many are visual may prefer to read something straight from a page or on a screen.

Content marketing is no different. It should be a mixture of types that can adhere to diverse learning styles.

For example, using video or even an infographic as a form of content can be an extremely beneficial and noteworthy way to communicate your brand and help you stand far apart from your competitors. Not only are you encompassing the auditory piece, but you're also providing a visual outlet.

We've also learned that shorter content isn't necessarily the be all and end all, but rather as long as you are communicating your message and your brand, content can be any length necessary for what you're trying to accomplish.

Mobile is a Go!

In 2013 we've really started to confirm the importance of mobile, and this includes content as well. How many people out there search for things via their mobile browser, specifically when on the go? I know I do.

Creating content that is effective on a mobile device can absolutely increase your chances of success overall; by being represented properly on the devices and platforms that individuals have access to, the better success rate you will have in the long-term.

Creating distinctive content that is suitable for specific devices while sticking with your niche and holding the interest of your followers, you'll be that much more likely to achieve a content marketing victory.

Content is a Piece of the Big Picture

In the past year, we've realized that content isn't a lone unit and as such, many have begun to implement it as a part of their digital strategies as a whole.

Rather than creating content and simply hoping that your customers will be attracted to it, we've begun to truly look into the heart of our followers, in turn discovering the content best suited to them and creating it and from there, delving into promotion via social and beyond.

Tell Your Story With Content

Not only that, but we've realized that content isn't just about discussing a product that you may carry. Rather, it's about using content to communicate who you are as a brand.

You can easily tell your story by way of content; write a blog post with a personal touch, create a video showing your daily grind. By being transparent to your followers, you will likely gain and even greater audience by making known who you are and what you want to accomplish with your business.

Keep Promoting Your Content

While 2013 has been a year of new and interesting content, we've realized that just because something may be older and created a while back doesn't mean that it won't be of interest currently. By re-promoting your older content, you'll be able to bring your audience back to something that they may have forgotten about or missed entirely.

So just because something may be considered "outdated," don't let it fall to the wayside; keep on promoting it and see where it goes.

Where Are We Going in 2014?Content is Worth the Investment

In 2014, the realization of the dire importance of content within business models is going to continue. Budgets are have already allocated more funds to content strategies both in the U.S. and around the world, and content budgets for 2014 have already shown total increases.

While some may assume that since content marketing is newer and more unique than traditional marketing, that it will cost more. But, this isn't the case.

Content marketing doesn't necessarily cost as much as traditional marketing does. Plus, you will most likely give you even more leads and sales as a result.

Right now many businesses are taking a look at their content efforts from 2013 and deciding upon which strategies worked, which didn't, and how they can improve upon their tactics in the New Year.

We're going to start looking more into our audiences and finding more locations in which to promote our content. Many people are seeking to just get their content out there and aren't necessarily digging deep to find out who the best followers would be.

Also consider the number of content-specific conferences out there. This number has skyrocketed; and what does this tell us? Simply that people want to learn about content; how to create it, how to be successful, and how it can help their businesses to prosper.

'Content Combat'

With so many companies increasing their content investments in 2014, it could become a true battle for search visibility, even if the content you create is of high quality. So what can you do?

Make sure that your content is unique and the true voice of your brand. Make sure you know the ins and outs of your audience and are speaking directly to them and their interests with each and every piece of content that you create.

Strategies on the Way

Rather than aimlessly throwing content out on the web, people and businesses are going to start working with actual strategies for content creation and promotion. This includes documenting and tracking everything in order to locate successes and failures.

Use an editorial calendar to keep track of your content in 2014. By planning everything out on a calendar, you'll ensure that you keep everything in line with your goals.

If you weren't before, measure your results; whether you do this with an old-fashioned spreadsheet or with the help of Google Analytics. By measuring and analyzing your success, you'll be able to decide where you want to definitively go with your content in the future.

Google's Influence on Content: Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird

All of Google's updates in 2013 have proven how important content is, and how important it will continue to be as we enter into 2014.

Content in 2014 is going to be a lot more like a good old conversation that you might have with a co-worker in the hallway. Thanks to the Hummingbird algorithm, Google searches are akin to the way that we naturally speak, so content is going to be forced to adjust to these conversational searches.

Here's to Content in 2014

No matter what day, month, or year it is, content is in the works, and in a big way. A big picture word nowadays, content has truly driven the industry into new realms in 2013, and 2014 will be sure to be another adventurous year. So here's to content in 2014 and the many places it will continue to take us.

What are your predictions for the year to come?

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.

2013 Web Analytics Year in Review

With multiple updates each month, 2013 was a huge year for the Google Analytics team. The changes included several improvements to the user interface, the introduction of several real-time reports, new APIs, and a plethora of reports to help you understand visitor behavior through new segments and acquisition reports.

Visually, Google Analytics received a few design changes.

The Analytics team kicked off 2013 in January, creating a new interface for widgets in dashboard reports and in the main navigation. Search functionality returned and keyboard shortcuts were introduced as the entire Google Analytics UI received an overhaul.

Just a short few months later, Google announced Administration area changes that led to better access controls and ultimately led to a streamlined admin panel redesign.

New Google Analytics Reports

The user interface changes were merely the tip of the iceberg for Google Analytics in 2013. Tracking visitor acquisition became a major deal. Starting in March, the Google Analytics team released Acquisitions Reporting. The Traffic Sources report category was renamed to Acquisitions Reports, adding new attribution reports in the process. These reports included overviews for acquisitions and channels.

Borrowing from Webmaster Tools, a new Speed Suggestions Report was also added to Google Analytics in November.

To help make more sense of these reports, the Analytics team added 19 new filters, streamlined how you set up goals, and completely revamped advanced segments adding new segments, cohort analysis, and sequences all rolled into a new user interface.

Image Credit: Justin Cutroni

Developers, Developers, Developers...

There were plenty of changes throughout 2013 to keep developers busy trying out new code and adding features. Premium users were treated to access to Big Query to help process extremely large Analytics data sets.

In June, we were treated to an API for content experiments, followed by a Real-Time Analytics API before summer was out. Administrators not only saw an interface change with better access controls, for the first time in 2013, they were also able to see a change history.

Universal Analytics for Everyone

Google started off spring offering everyone the chance to use Universal Analytics, enabling better tracking on-page and opening up for ease of tracking users between devices. When first introduced, however, Universal Analytics required its own account profile.

In October, the team announced a Universal Analytics upgrade tool to migrate your current profile to Universal Analytics. If you use it, remember to change your tracking code, too.

Mobile Analytics

In testing for many months, by mid-2013, My Analytics was released by KISS Metrics. Specifically for iOS, the tool simplified getting analytics data on the go, offering quick access to visits, visitors, pageviews, goals, and ecommerce reports using your current Google Analytics account.

As if prompted, by the end of September, Google Analytics launched an entirely new version of their app for Android.

Open Source Analytics

Lastly, in a project over two years in the making, the folks over at Piwik finally announced this week they have released version 2 of their open analytics platform. The open source alternative to Google Analytics, Piwik also released Piwik Mobile 2.0 which shows more data and requires less clicks to get the data you're looking for.

Looking Ahead...

Google Analytics hasn't stopped moving forward.

In 2014, expect to see more changes to multi-channel and attribution reporting. Recent trends also suggest Google Analytics may start incorporating various other reports from Webmaster Tools, especially those with respect to visitor behavior.

Any way you look at it, this is an exciting time to be an analyst.

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.

Online Marketing News: Twitter Engagement Explodes, Yahoo Falls Behind Facebook, Mobile Drives Paid Search Clicks

How To Increase Twitter Engagement By 324% � This infographic from Quicksprout has an absolute wealth of statistics and tips on how to generate a better ROI on Twitter � implement some of these suggestions into your strategy and watch those engagement rates climb. MediaBistro

62% Of Marketers Say Local Search Is Getting Harder � Read the opinions of hundreds of search agencies, consultants and business owners who logged in during a recent InsideLocal webinar. Search Engine Land

14 Stats to Inform Your 2014 Social Marketing Strategy � While no single industry statistic should stand alone in informing future plans and strategies, a broader snapshot of social network trends, social consumer behaviors and brand social media results can help reveal the big picture of social as we head into 2014. Social Media Today

33% of Paid-Search Clicks Coming From Mobile Devices � Mobile devices drove consumers to spend more time online while on the go. Paid search marketers worldwide allocated 34.4% to mobile devices in 2013, with phones capturing 17.7% and tablets receiving 16.7% — up from 20.5% in 2012. More than one in three global paid-search clicks originated from mobile devices during the 2013 early shopping season. The biggest driver was from tablets, where clicks rose from 8.7% of total clicks in 2012 to 16.3% in 2013. MediaPost

Report: Digital Ad Spending to Approach $10 Billion This Year � Based on the preceding news item, this comes as no surprise, but the figures are huge. Ad spending across all devices will grow 15.7% to $42.6 billion. In 2014, eMarketer projects total spending on desktop ads will increase by just 0.4%, while mobile ad spending will grow another 56% to nearly $15 billion. � BtoB

12 (of the) Best Content Marketing Infographics of 2013 � Discover the best practices for creating effective infographics and helpful infographic design tools and resources. Webbiquity

Six Pinterest Tools for Your Blog � Check out these six Pinterest tools to make the most of your site�s visual content. SpinSucks

B-to-B Digital Ad Revenue Up 25% in First Half � According to American Business Media’s most recent Business Information Network (BIN) Report, total B2B media and information company revenue increased 4.4% in the first half of the year to reach $13.11 billion, led by a 24.8% increase in digital advertising revenue. B2B

Twitter Pushes Promoted Account Ads Into Timelines, Rolls Out Conversion Tracking Tool � As Twitter closes its most important year to date, the company is rapidly adding features in a concerted effort to boost revenues and compete with Facebook and Google for advertising dollars. Promoted accounts, one of Twitter�s few ad products currently available, are now coming to the timeline via the company�s iOS and Android apps. ClickZ

Yahoo Slips Behind Google, Facebook and Microsoft In Online Ad Share � According to eMarketer, Yahoo!, long the country�s second-largest ad seller, will cede share of net U.S. digital ad revenues to Facebook and Microsoft. AdAge

Only 12% of Businesses Take an Integrated Approach to All Marketing Activities � The inability to integrate marketing campaigns is at least partly due to the failure to utilize relevant technologies. Less than a fifth of respondents (19%) said that they are currently using multichannel campaign management technology, though more than half (55%) are planning to begin using it in the next 18 months. eConsultancy

5 Biggest Social Media Lessons of 2013 � We still have a ways to go in understanding and applying social media to the business world, but there was no shortage of lessons to glean from 2013. Mashable

Hit By Panda and Confused About Low-Quality Content? � Getting hit by Google Panda can be confusing for many webmasters. But one important Google Analytics report can help Panda victims get on the right track and quickly. This post includes detailed instructions for creating and exporting the report. Search Engine Watch

Facebook Page Insights Now Include Real-Time Data � Facebook introduced two updates to its page insights aimed at giving page administrators a much clearer picture of both the present and the past. MediaBistro/All Facebook

The Shape of Things to Come: Google in 2014 � How will Google evolve after the acquisition of Wavii, Behav.io, PostRank, Grapple, and machine learning and neural computing technologies? Gianluca Fiorelli paints a picture of Google in 2014, based on entity search, semantic, and �ber-personalization, covering how Google’s recent acquisitions will interact with one another in order to shape our search experience. Read this informative and definitive post. Moz

Twitter Alerts Gains New Features, Rolls Out to Additional Countries � Twitter�s Alert feature is becoming much more robust. Launched back in September, the goal of Twitter Alerts is to provide pertinent information in times of crisis. MarketingLand

Top 20 YouTube & Video Marketing Stories the Year � YouTube dominated the video marketing headlines again this year, but Vine and Facebook made waves, as well. These were the 20 biggest stories in 2013. ClickZ

Visual Search May Offer Deeper mCommerce Engagement � Recent advancements in the area of visual search are setting the stage for a major shift in how people interact with the world around them and how those selling can better interact with those buying. Visual search technology is entering real viability at a critical time for an industry undergoing a tremendous amount of upheaval. Mobile Commerce Daily

Real-Time Marketing: The Agility to Leverage ‘Now’ � [SlideShare] Digital channels are ‘on’ 24/7, a fact that’s as true for brands as it is for traditional media. Organizations struggle to keep up, not to mention remain relevant. All marketing organizations must now consider to what degree they will function in real time. New research from Industry Analyst Rebecca Lieb defines real time marketing (RTM), identifies the six RTM business scenarios, addresses the benefits, challenges on how to execute and best practices of RTM. She outlines how companies can move into real-time readiness. Rebecca Lieb, Altimeter

Report: Email Volume Rises 13% in Q3 � A study by Experian� revealed a rise in open rates when a brand’s name was included in the subject line of transactional emails, such as shipping and order confirmations, order cancellations and return confirmations. What are you doing to make your email stand out? BtoB

From the Online Marketing Community

On Why a Transition From Optimizing for Search Engines to Optimizing for Customers is Essential David Black said, Thankfully the days of posts with illiterate titles based solely on the top results from a quick Google keywords search may soon be over.
It’s always possible to write articles or build web pages that customers want to see whilst using simple SEO techniques to help people find them. Really good content will get pushed around with social media and result in good SERPS.

Derek Miller said, Really good article Lee and a lot of valid points. If companies do not make the change to focus on customers they will be left behind their competitors that do. Thanks for sharing.

Eva said, Great Insight. I think one of the problems firms face is they are too focused in what they do rather than what customers need. The regular meetings revolve around what happened rather than “how can we help you achieve your strategic objectives?”. Add to that marketing being separate to the account manager people and you end up with SEO stuffed content in danger of falling into the “no one cares” about category. I believe research is critical is answering this debate, yet many companies are reluctant to ask their customers the critical questions. I would love to know if others have experience this.

What’s Your Take?

Will 2014 be the year more businesses take an integrated approach to marketing? Will you be optimizing for the customer journey?

Wishing you all a very happy New Year! Thanks for reading.

Where Search Optimization Fits in The Future of Digital Marketing

Clever lighting at Google

As long as useful answers can be found on search engines, optimizing content for search discovery will remain a key to online success.

The degree to which marketers must align creative, technical and customer centric resources for content may vary, but optimized content is vital for reaching and engaging customers that are actively looking for solutions.

Buyers are continuously seeking answers from the web, whether it�s via PC, mobile, or tablet, at every stage in the buying cycle. So it�s important that brands ask themselves: Are your digital assets and media properly optimized to capture these visitors at every phase�from discovery to purchase?

Of course, the days of optimizing a web site as a single source of interaction with customers are long gone. Buyers are becoming far more sophisticated in how they access information, often consuming media of different formats on multiple devices at the same time.

While a company may do well with web pages on Google search from a lap top computer, their competitors might be dominating with images on mobile search and using video within relevant social networks.

If your business isn’t “the best answer” where and when customers need you, then the competition will be.

Integrated digital marketing across earned, owned, paid and shared media is the answer, but can be complicated for marketers that are structured for single channel efforts. As a starting point (and a solid reminder for pros) here are three simple tips on how to use search optimization as part of a more sophisticated digital marketing program.

1. Know Your Customer

How well do you know your customers? What characterizes your best customers? Your worst customers? Have you quantified and qualified these observations?

One way to anticipate the demand for topics that can drive your content creation and performance optimization is to research keywords with tools like Ubersuggest and Google AdWords Keyword Planner (AdWords account required).

Use that research to create a keyword glossaryand then map topics that are most relevant and in demand to the corresponding categories and pages on your website, blog and other web content. While Google has masked organic keyword referrers from web analytics, this mapping tactic will help you connect traffic performance to the topics and keywords that you’ve been optimizing for. Knowing what your buyer wants is the first step to delivering and then optimizing valuable content that will prove meaningful to new and returning customers alike.

Use what you already know about your best customers to create, promote and optimize content that helps them answer key questions during all phases of the buying cycle. Don’t just focus on transactions. Once you have engagement with that content, you can use social media monitoring and web analytics data to further refine messaging, creative and calls to action.

The future of optimization with digital marketing is a never ending effort to improve the ability for search engines and buyers to find understand and act on your content.

2. Align Sales with Search

Businesses should analyze KPIs (key performance indicators) that lead consumers to conversion. What pages are driving conversion? What pages serve as stepping stones to conversion? Take inventory of these pages and ensure that they are optimized for discovery, engagement and action appropriately.

For each customer segment, there may be a unique sequence of steps along the buying journey from awareness to interest to consideration and purchase. With each step there are different questions to be answered and different calls to action. Make sure you anticipate what KPIs make the most sense at each stage and that they align with the business outcome you desire.

Trying to instigate transactions on a page that is optimized for customers that are just learning about your category of solution for the first time is a disconnect. Optimizing a page with a case study, pricing or competitive comparison is a better match for inspiring educated buyers to transact.

Align appropriate sales messaging with optimized content across the buying cycle and you’ll deliver a better customer experience that will lead to more sales whether the pages are discovered from search or links from other sources like social media, industry publications or the company blog.

3. Track Performance & Facilitate Change

Once you�ve implemented an SEO strategy into your digital marketing mix, the job of optimization for search is far from finished. Track the organic search visibility of your optimized content and digital assets to see if there are correlations between keyword ranking and the performance of pages that have been optimized for specific phrases.

Moving forward, tailor your content and topic optimization strategy to reflect buyer preferences, and refine messaging on destination content like landing pages as well as feeder content like blog posts, earned media and social networks based on performance indicators. The process of optimization is continuous.

The future of optimization within a digital marketing strategy means creating a search strategy that encompasses all devices, channels and media that customers are using. Modern business buyers and consumer shoppers are discovering and interacting with content on multiple channels. What does that mean for marketers? The days of single channel are dead. The days of multichannel are maturing and the world of omnichannel is where marketers need to gain proficiency in order to truly deliver on “the best answer” experience for buyers.

According to Google Think Insights, �90% of people use multiple screens sequentially.� Today, and in the coming year, your search optimization strategy must span all channels, reach your customers on all screens and be integrated with your overall online marketing strategy. Know your customer and revisit the data that supports your hypothesis about what drives each of your most important customer segments. �Optimize across the sales cycle, not just for transactions and make sure you’ve committed to optimizing for content performance in search on an ongoing basis.

Have you tackled these three basic steps? Are your SEO efforts still focused on keywords and rankings or are you optimizing for customer experiences?

This post was adapted from an edited interview I did with LivePerson for their eBook: The Future of Digital Engagement: 10 Thought Leaders Share Predictions for 2014

Happy Holidays from @TopRank Online Marketing

Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones from TopRank Online Marketing!

It’s been an incredible year for us with new faces, new clients, improved services mix and the continued growth of our digital marketing consulting practice.

This year we’ve added some amazing talent to the TopRank team and I am very thankful for their contributions! Ours is a very dynamic industry and mutual client and company success calls for our team members to be adaptable, passionate about the work and solution oriented.

I am happy to report that they’ve answered the call impressively. We’ve taken on 20 new clients, renewed more client engagements than ever and have grown numerous programs to include an integrated mix of content, social media, SEO and online PR.

Here’s a huge THANKS to the smart, creative and results-focused future leaders that have joined the TopRank Online Marketing team in 2013:

Ben Brausen – Social Media MarketingBrooke McDonald – Account ManagementEliza Steely – Account ManagementEmily Bacheller – Social Media MarketingJesse Pickrain – Content MarketingMichael Bak – Account Management & Paid Search MarketingNick Ehrenberg – Account Management, Content MarketingSteven Zahurones – Account Management, SEO

And we’re still hiring!

During the Holidays it’s important to reflect on what’s important and there’s a lot to be thankful for with our team and customer community. As part of that reflection, I�regret the loss of our team member,�Brian Larson�and also marvel at the ability of senior consultant and director, Jolina Pettice, to hit the ground sprinting at full speed while taking on his client accounts.

We place a high value on ongoing learning at TopRank and I am proud to share that both Alexis Hall and Nick Ehrenberg earned their Master’s degrees this year. Congratulations!

Multiple team members have continued their quest for knowledge through various Google certifications (Analytics & Paid Search) as well as attending local and industry conferences. Account Manager Evan Prokop has embarked on a new Digital Marketing role that will impact his own areas of expertise as well as the rest of our team. We’ll continue that trend into 2014 so you’ll see more TopRank team faces at events, getting certified, continuously learning and optimizing performance.

I’d also like to extend gratitude, appreciation and best of luck to our amazingly talented Amie Krone who helps keeps the TopRank ship running in more ways than one. I wish the best of luck with the birth of her new baby and hope she can relax as much as possible during her maternity leave.

The heartbeat of TopRank is of course, Susan Misukanis, who mentors our consultants, works with new client opportunities and has the uncanny ability to bring clarity out of chaos. We are all forever thankful and grateful for her leadership and contributions (and sense of humor) that drive the success of our team, clients and overall agency.

There’s a lot to look forward to in the coming year and this one blog post simply isn’t enough to share the depth of my gratitude to our team, our clients and to our community. Thank you!

 

 

Twitter 2013 Year in Review: Notable Features, News & Research

Ah, how time flies … especially in the Twittersphere – where 140 characters rule and 6 seconds of video say it all.

It seems like just yesterday we were oogling over Twitter Vine, and now, Twitter's all grown up, staking its claim as a publicly traded company.

It would be bold to say we could recap everything that happened with Twitter this year, but we did compile some of the highlights. Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

Notable Twitter News in 2013

The big news for Twitter this year was, of course, filing for an IPO in September. The initial IPO filing shed light on the financial situationof the social giant for the first time, uncovering Twitter's approximate $419 million deficit.

More recently, the news on Twitter was its participation with other tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft in the Reform Government Surveillance group, an effort to "address the practices and laws regulating government surveillance of individuals and access to their information."

Other Twitter news in May of this year hit when Yahoo announced it would "seamlessly include relevant and personalized Tweets alongside stories from Yahoo! and our other sources" right in the search results.

And let's not forget about the Vatican embracing Twitter, as Pope Francis (@pontifex) took the reigns as the new head of the Catholic Church earlier this year.

Notable Twitter Features in 2013

Twitter kicked off its year of feature releases with Twitter Vine, launched in January, and people and brands all over the world shared the moments of their lives in six seconds or less.

In April, Twitter allowed for keyword targeting for promoted tweets. In May Twitter unveiled a new way for limited users to leverage the social platform for lead gen with "Lead Generation Cards" – a way to collect information and offer resources without users ever having to leave Twitter.

A few months later, itreleased the feature to all. And in November, Webtrends shared a case study that showed Lead Generation Cards yielded an improved cost per lead by 500 percent.

In early summer, Twitter began testing "related headlines," which it officially released in August; related headlines curates articles from select publishers under a tweet that shares something newsworthy.

Another launch this year was Twitter's television advertising suite, which allowed marketers to "engage directly with people on Twitter who have been exposed to their ads on TV," Twitter said in its announcement.

Then in November, it launched "conversation targeting" as part of that suite, which allowed advertisers to reach TV viewers engaging in conversation about a particular show, whether or not they originally advertised on television.

And this month, Twitter announced that its ad retargeting service was officially open for business, after much speculation in the summer about its arrival, and a soft launch in July.

As Twitter worked towards enhancing its experience for users, additional notable releases this year included:

Custom timelines.The ability to schedule tweets a year in advance.New search results with more mixed media.

2013 Twitter Research

Research from this year shed light on Twitter user behavior in general, with some data showing users definitely do have expectations for brands and their engagement level on Twitter.

More than 70 percent of users said they expect to hear back from the brand they're interacting with on Twitter, according to data by Lithium Technologies. The majority (53 percent) wants that response within the hour.

Another study by TrackMaven highlighted what days of the week and time of day Twitter users were pumping out tweets, and when retweets were most likely to happen. Research showed the most active days were Monday through Friday, but Sunday seemed to be the most promising for retweets.

And if you're curious, we found out in September that Topsy has every tweet, ever – 425 billion to be exac – in case you have some time on your hands and want to search its database.

Looking Back on 2013 Through the Eyes of Twitter

If nothing else, Twitter is a place for people to share the days of their lives, and the events happening all around them. Recently, Twitter released an interactive year-in-review widget that explores the stories that mattered to people in 2013.

Highlighting the fascination that Twitter users have with the entertainment industry's stars and their lives, the most popular tweet of 2013 was actress Lea Michelle's first outreach on Twitter about her boyfriend's untimely death this year.

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.

Search Engine Land’s Most-Shared Stories on Facebook for 2013: How To Survive Google, Plus A Joke Here & There

Search marketing friends — welcome, welcome! It’s time for another installment of our�Search Engine Land Year In Review series. We’ve toured through the�top news stories�and those that were most tweeted�–�now it’s time to scope out the articles, tutorials, resources, and surveys that were most shared on the world’s largest social network, Facebook.

Much of our “most popular on FB” posts you’ve already seen on the top tweeted list, but the order in which these stories rank is something of note. And for sure a few more playful posts made it into this roundup (April Fools, Easter Eggs), suggesting that tweet-streams are more of a place for hard-hitting news, whereas Facebook users might be more inclined to share light and pleasantly distracting posts with likeminded friends.

For all of our�most socially-shared stories of 2013, we used�Social Crawlytics, a free tool that analyzes each URL of a site to show how it�s been shared across top social sites. It’s a super useful�tool�to capture social plugin data and illuminate how �content resonates socially.

Alright, enough analysis – let’s get to the goods. Here you have them, the top 20 Search Engine Land stories shared on Facebook in 2013:

FAQ: All About The New Google �Hummingbird� AlgorithmPenguin 4, With Penguin 2.0 Generation Spam-Fighting, Is Now LiveGoogle�s Impressive �Conversational Search� Goes Live On ChromeA Eulogy For AltaVista, The Google Of Its TimePenguin 5, With The Penguin 2.1 Spam-Filtering Algorithm, Is Now LivePost-PRISM, Google Confirms Quietly Moving To Make All Searches Secure, Except For Ad ClicksGoogle�s Matt Cutts On Upcoming Penguin, Panda & Link Networks UpdatesHow The New Facebook Search Is Different & Unique From Google SearchGoogle Panda Update Version #24; 1.2% Of Search Queries ImpactedGoogle�s April Fools� Day 2013 Joke-A-Thon: YouTube Shutdown, Google Nose & MoreGoogle�s Hummingbird Takes Flight: SEOs Give Insight On Google�s New AlgorithmGoogle Changes Ranking Advice, Says Build Quality Sites Not LinksThe Top Five SEO Mistakes According To Google�s Matt CuttsGoogle Confirms Panda Update Is Rolling Out: This One Is More �Finely Targeted�Google Warns Against Large-Scale Guest Posting, Advertorials & �Optimized Anchor Text� In Press ReleasesNow Updated: The Periodic Table Of SEO Success FactorsGoogle�s Matt Cutts: Black Hat & Link Spammers Less Likely To Show Up In Search Results After Summer50 Percent Of Companies Struggling With SEO Aren�t Integrating Social Media [Survey]Google Testing Huge Banner Ads For Branded QueriesThe Big List Of Google Easter Eggs

Happy holidays, dear readers!

How Link Building Changed in 2013

Every year, link building gets harder. We rename the process, we struggle to adapt to updates, we beg clients to let us stay as safe as possible, we argue about new factors that may outweigh it in Google's eyes, but still, we keep building links.

Clients keep requesting link building services, and I honestly don't see that much has changed this year in terms of how it all works. Sure, some poor quality tactics have come under fire and you can't get away with everything that worked in 2012, but will people stop building links? No way.

So what changed this year in terms of link building?

Google Updates: The Condensed Version

Panda refreshed a few times until it was announced that it would be rolled into Google's core algorithm, with monthly refreshes that would occur over a period of 10 days. In July many webmasters saw some Panda recoveries. There were Penguin recoveries during Panda updates as well.

Penguin updated in May and then in October, with both updates causing havoc with some sites, except the May update wasn't nearly as bad as the big one in October.

Hummingbird was quietly unleashed as a new core algorithm, with this supposedly meaning that now Google could better understand a query as a whole and not just on a partial level. It was apparently live for weeks before it was confirmed and did we notice? For the most part, nope.

A few non-animal-named (and sometimes unconfirmed) updates were released throughout the year.

A Phantom update in early May caused many sites to lose most of their traffic.A domain crowding update, also in May, sought to alleviate the problem of having multiple results from the same sites for a query.A payday loan update hit in June, attempting to curb spam in niches like loans and porn.

There were a few others, but in terms of ones that affected link building, we still mainly had to fear Penguin.

For a full listing of 2013 updates, Moz has a great list.

3 Major Link Building Topics in 2013

Three major topics were discussed all year long:

1. Disavowing Links

Should you disavow? Should you bother trying to clean up links or just disavow them? Would disavowing links hurt you? Would it draw attention to something and you'd be better off keeping quiet? Should you disavow links if you haven't been penalized or lost any traffic and rankings?

Related articles:

How to Use Google's Disavow Links Tool the Right WayGoogle Reveals New Details on Link Disavow ToolDisavowing Links? Google Says Use a Machete, Not a Scalpel2. Requesting Reconsideration

When should you do it? What should you do before doing it? Would it bring unwanted scrutiny on your site if you had something to hide and really didn't need to be doing it?

Related articles:

Google Reconsideration Request Guidelines & ExampleWhy Google Won't Respond to the 5,000 Reconsideration Requests They Get Every Week8 Reasons Your Reconsideration Request Will Fail3. Cleaning up Your Links

Was it worth the time and effort when you could potentially just disavow the links? Should you pay a webmaster to remove a link? Was someone harming your site by building bad links to it and if so, what should you do in terms of cleanup?

Related articles:

Removing Unnatural Links by Removing Pages on Your WebsiteLink Removal Request Tips for Webmasters & Business OwnersHow to Conduct a Link AuditMore Top Link Building Stories in 2013

Google started giving us more information in Webmaster Tools. Manually penalized? Now you could see a message to that effect! This was a giant step towards better communicating with webmasters who weren't always sure why they were not doing well.

But then Google moved the "submit a reconsideration request" functionality into Manual Actions in Webmaster Tools so that you could only do that if you had a manual action. Naturally that makes sense, as those requests only work for manual actions, but the problem was that you could submit one for any reason before (even if you weren't technically supposed to) but since it was accessible earlier, many webmasters were quite upset about having gone through the process of cleaning up their profiles and disavowing links in hopes of submitting one.

However, after this clarification they did still make sure we knew that disavowing bad links was a good idea, even if we hadn't been hit.

Despite alluding to the idea that we might not see another 2013 PageRank update, we have in fact just seen one. Despite all of us who say PageRank doesn't matter, there sure was a lot of chatter about this in social and in the blogosphere.

Link networks continued to be in the news with a couple being taken down just in recent weeks. Remember when I said not to rely on networks for your rankings? That advice still holds.

Finally, Google updates its definition of "link schemes." On the 2013 chopping block: press releases, advertorials, and guest posts.

Bing!

What about Bing? I turned to Duane Forrester, who manages Bing Webmaster Tools, for this one but in a nutshell, he backed up a lot of sentiment about letting links happen naturally for the best results.

"...the reality is, more now than ever, letting links build naturally is the way forward," he said. " We’ve seen years of people gaming the system, or trying to, at least. And while many think they’re getting ahead, the view from inside an engine is very different. We see what people do, the patterns they make and the trails left behind."

He also spoke to the idea of social becoming more important, and I'd definitely agree on that one. One thing that he said really stood out in my mind, as it's a problem we face constantly, and that is the fact that it's extremely difficult to get a webmaster's attention today. If you rely on email outreach to build links, you're probably going to have to work extra hard to make that happen in 2014.

"Social lets a business amplify the outreach through a network of self-directed fans," Forrester said. "And if you wow them with content, they’ll share far and wide for you, all in an effort to be the first of their peers to share something worthy."

Yandex

Yandex, the Russian search engine, announced plans to ignore links as a ranking factor for commercial queries, with a focus on human interactions with sites.

Will the others follow suit? And will this work? Time will tell but it's an interesting concept.

So far it looks like that change would only affect around 10 percent of their queries, so it leaves room for making further changes if it doesn't work out. Apparently they're considering this since they think that the quality signals from links are much lower than they were years ago. I'd have to agree with that.

So What Changed in the Industry, Really?People talked more about building relationships than building links. This whole concept has been around for ages but in 2013, it really started to get much more attention. Many link builders stopped calling themselves link builders and became outreach specialists, content creators, relationship managers, inbound marketers, or anything besides link builders. Did they stop doing things that had the end result of building links? Somehow I doubt it. People just talked more about how link building shouldn't be a goal but, in many cases, it of course still was a goal.Some webmasters became more afraid to link out. Tales of unfairly penalized sites were everywhere and many webmasters decided to either nofollow all outbound links or just not link at all.

From what I'm seeing, it's still the same game even if it's gotten harder. People are still building spammy links and they're still working in some cases. You can still move a site up in the rankings with just a few good links.

From the perspective of a link building agency, what I'm seeing is that clients still want links. They are still willing to buy them, they're still using networks, and they're still engaging in very risky tactics despite being warned about what can happen. You will still see blatantly paid links on big sites and not be able to pick paid links out on another one, because link builders can be very clever, as can webmasters.

Summary

I've always maintained that links remain incredibly important, and just as I say every year, I really don't see that going away any time soon. Even if Google decided to build a new algorithm that had nothing to do with links, the fact remains that links are how people move around on the web. They're how people find your site, and even if they no longer affect rankings, they'll still be a critical part of your online marketing strategy.

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.

Thank you! Happy 10 Years of Blogging @TopRank Online Marketing Blog

Can you believe it? On this day in 2003 our first “hello world” blog post for TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog was published. �1,328,500 of my own words plus tens of thousands more from our team later, it’s amazing to think it has been 10 years already.

Wow, how time flies!

A HUGE THANK YOU goes out to you, our readers, who have engaged, shared and interacted with us over the years. Your feedback and interactions have inspired us with ideas that we’ve been able spread all over the world.

In fact, I’ll be sharing the top 10 lessons I’ve learned from 10 years of blogging as one of the opening keynote presenters at NMX BlogWorld the first week in January. �As I reflect on the awesome contributions from our team and our community to the success of �TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog, I’ll share a few of those lessons here.

Blogging has been good for our business. Many readers have become our clients, others have joined the TopRank team and many more have learned and shared the advice here amongst their own networks in the digital marketing, public relations, search, social and content marketing worlds. Blogging has also enabled coopetition amongst other digital agencies, many of which we’ve been able to partner with. �We’ve realized other benefits too:

Unsolicited media coverage from The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times and many othersSpeaking opportunities all over the world: New York, San Francisco, Moscow, Madrid, Sydney, Antwerp, London, Hong Kong, Auckland, Tonoto and even Coralville Iowa.Consulting with major brands: General Mills, HP, Dell, McKesson, Staples, LinkedIn, Marketo, Radian6, and many othersAttracting a major book publisher, Wiley, through which I published my first book: Optimize – How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content MarketingRecruiting top talent – smart, creative and focused on results!Partnering with amazing conferences as a media sponsor, content partner: Content Marketing World, Social Media Marketing World, NMX BlogWorld, ClickZ Live and othersSource of marketing experimentation with content themes, SEO tactics, and other ways to attract measurable results

The thing is, our blog isn’t a success just because of what we publish. It’s a success because of the the online to offline dynamic of networking and interacting with people in the industry. �We crowdsource ideas, content and leverage offline to online interactions for a cycle of interaction with priceless effects. Find smart people to interact with on relevant topics and then recognize them publicly when they contribute. This is how we’ve grown our social community to over 3o0,000.

The magic formula for community growth: Ask, Recognize. Repeat.

The proof is in the feedback. I can’t count how many times people have approached me at conferences and industry events to say they’ve been reading our blog for years and how it has helped them improve their marketing and even get jobs, promotions and inspire them to start their own consultancies. Not only is it satisfying to know our efforts to contribute have helped others, but it’s inspiring others to do the same. A rising tide lifts all ships.

Our business blogging philosophy: Give to get.

With the real-time, visual and mobile web exploding, blogging still holds an important place in the digital marketing mix – and always will for our team at TopRank. While we’re a boutique digital marketing agency, our blog has helped us achieve industry awareness, reputation and respect on par with a agency that is multiples our size. �We’ve been included in numerous lists as a top blog and are often considered a publisher on par with many industry publications. Becoming a go to resource for topics your community is interested in helps you become the center of attention when it matters most. It helps your customers bypass industry publications and connect with your brand directly as a trusted source of answers, resources and solutions.

If you want to ensure your brand gets in the media, then become the media yourself.

As a communications and marketing tool, the importance of blogging cannot be underestimated. Blogging has been an instrumental part of growing our business from a few marketers working with a handful of clients from home to a sweet office on Lake Minnetonka where we get to work with some of the biggest companies, best known B2B brands, and smartest client marketers on the web. �The best part is, as we share our knowledge, we also hypothesize, test and learn in a continuous cycle. Blogging facilitates that cycle of learning that we can share with our community.

A blog is only as interesting as the interest shown in others.

For 10 years, creating content has been the core of our communications strategy to attract, engage and inspire action from prospective customers, potential employees, industry media, influencers and bloggers. �Seeing the millions of dollars in ROI from our blogging efforts, I can’t imagine that strategy will change in the next 10 years. Creating content as information, specifically useful and personalized for a target audience and as an overall experience across channels will be even more important in 2014 and beyond. Content is more than blogging, but blogging help you create more and better content that can reach the audience you’re after.

Content isn’t king, it’s the kingdom

When it comes to creating impactful content with minimal resources, I believe we walk the talk like few other companies can. Then we pass that insight on to your, our clients and community nearly every day. �Competition for time and attention is only going to increase. At the same time, it’s essential that marketers become even more effective at being useful and info-taining when and where it matters to their target audience. Whether it’s a search, a social network, email, an industry publication or an event, companies need to be present and top of mind for buyers. Blogging is a fantastic platform for asking and answering the questions that buyers are asking and that Google is beginning to favor. Remember, content is the reason search began in the first place.

Marketing Strategy for 2014 and beyond: Be the best answer.

Thanks to our team of contributors and very small number of guest posts, we’ve published nearly 3,500 blog posts including hundreds of marketing conference liveblogs, industry trends, tips and how to’s, interviews, book reviews, software reviews, polls and our beloved lists. I hope you’ve found them useful and continue to visit and share our humble little blog as often as you can.

I’ll be sharing more insights and specific thank you’s to TopRank staff, contributors, influencers and our community during the rest of this week as our 10 years of blogging celebration continues.

Thank you for reading, using and sharing!

 

 

Thank you! Happy 10 Years of Blogging @TopRank Online Marketing Blog

Can you believe it? On this day in 2003 our first “hello world” blog post for TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog was published. �1,328,500 of my own words plus tens of thousands more from our team later, it’s amazing to think it has been 10 years already.

Wow, how time flies!

A HUGE THANK YOU goes out to you, our readers, who have engaged, shared and interacted with us over the years. Your feedback and interactions have inspired us with ideas that we’ve been able spread all over the world.

In fact, I’ll be sharing the top 10 lessons I’ve learned from 10 years of blogging as one of the opening keynote presenters at NMX BlogWorld the first week in January. �As I reflect on the awesome contributions from our team and our community to the success of �TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog, I’ll share a few of those lessons here.

Blogging has been good for our business. Many readers have become our clients, others have joined the TopRank team and many more have learned and shared the advice here amongst their own networks in the digital marketing, public relations, search, social and content marketing worlds. Blogging has also enabled coopetition amongst other digital agencies, many of which we’ve been able to partner with. �We’ve realized other benefits too:

Unsolicited media coverage from The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times and many othersSpeaking opportunities all over the world: New York, San Francisco, Moscow, Madrid, Sydney, Antwerp, London, Hong Kong, Auckland, Tonoto and even Coralville Iowa.Consulting with major brands: General Mills, HP, Dell, McKesson, Staples, LinkedIn, Marketo, Radian6, and many othersAttracting a major book publisher, Wiley, through which I published my first book: Optimize – How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content MarketingRecruiting top talent – smart, creative and focused on results!Partnering with amazing conferences as a media sponsor, content partner: Content Marketing World, Social Media Marketing World, NMX BlogWorld, ClickZ Live and othersSource of marketing experimentation with content themes, SEO tactics, and other ways to attract measurable results

The thing is, our blog isn’t a success just because of what we publish. It’s a success because of the the online to offline dynamic of networking and interacting with people in the industry. �We crowdsource ideas, content and leverage offline to online interactions for a cycle of interaction with priceless effects. Find smart people to interact with on relevant topics and then recognize them publicly when they contribute. This is how we’ve grown our social community to over 3o0,000.

The magic formula for community growth: Ask, Recognize. Repeat.

The proof is in the feedback. I can’t count how many times people have approached me at conferences and industry events to say they’ve been reading our blog for years and how it has helped them improve their marketing and even get jobs, promotions and inspire them to start their own consultancies. Not only is it satisfying to know our efforts to contribute have helped others, but it’s inspiring others to do the same. A rising tide lifts all ships.

Our business blogging philosophy: Give to get.

With the real-time, visual and mobile web exploding, blogging still holds an important place in the digital marketing mix – and always will for our team at TopRank. While we’re a boutique digital marketing agency, our blog has helped us achieve industry awareness, reputation and respect on par with a agency that is multiples our size. �We’ve been included in numerous lists as a top blog and are often considered a publisher on par with many industry publications. Becoming a go to resource for topics your community is interested in helps you become the center of attention when it matters most. It helps your customers bypass industry publications and connect with your brand directly as a trusted source of answers, resources and solutions.

If you want to ensure your brand gets in the media, then become the media yourself.

As a communications and marketing tool, the importance of blogging cannot be underestimated. Blogging has been an instrumental part of growing our business from a few marketers working with a handful of clients from home to a sweet office on Lake Minnetonka where we get to work with some of the biggest companies, best known B2B brands, and smartest client marketers on the web. �The best part is, as we share our knowledge, we also hypothesize, test and learn in a continuous cycle. Blogging facilitates that cycle of learning that we can share with our community.

A blog is only as interesting as the interest shown in others.

For 10 years, creating content has been the core of our communications strategy to attract, engage and inspire action from prospective customers, potential employees, industry media, influencers and bloggers. �Seeing the millions of dollars in ROI from our blogging efforts, I can’t imagine that strategy will change in the next 10 years. Creating content as information, specifically useful and personalized for a target audience and as an overall experience across channels will be even more important in 2014 and beyond. Content is more than blogging, but blogging help you create more and better content that can reach the audience you’re after.

Content isn’t king, it’s the kingdom

When it comes to creating impactful content with minimal resources, I believe we walk the talk like few other companies can. Then we pass that insight on to your, our clients and community nearly every day. �Competition for time and attention is only going to increase. At the same time, it’s essential that marketers become even more effective at being useful and info-taining when and where it matters to their target audience. Whether it’s a search, a social network, email, an industry publication or an event, companies need to be present and top of mind for buyers. Blogging is a fantastic platform for asking and answering the questions that buyers are asking and that Google is beginning to favor. Remember, content is the reason search began in the first place.

Marketing Strategy for 2014 and beyond: Be the best answer.

Thanks to our team of contributors and very small number of guest posts, we’ve published nearly 3,500 blog posts including hundreds of marketing conference liveblogs, industry trends, tips and how to’s, interviews, book reviews, software reviews, polls and our beloved lists. I hope you’ve found them useful and continue to visit and share our humble little blog as often as you can.

I’ll be sharing more insights and specific thank you’s to TopRank staff, contributors, influencers and our community during the rest of this week as our 10 years of blogging celebration continues.

Thank you for reading, using and sharing!

 

 

Search Engine Land’s Top News Stories Of 2013: Hummingbirds, Penguins, Pandas & More

As we get ready to close the books on 2013, the editorial team that brings you daily news and features on Search Engine Land and Marketing Land is going to look back at the most popular content we published during these past 12 months.

Over the next week couple weeks, we’ll reveal our most popular columns (overall, and broken down by topic) and our most shared stories on the main social networks.

But we’ll begin today with a look back at the most popular news items of 2013.

Search Engine Land’s Most Popular News Stories Of 2013

This list includes news stories published through December 18th.

FAQ: All About The New Google “Hummingbird” Algorithm (September 26, by Danny Sullivan)Play The Frank Zamboni Google Doodle (January 16, by Barry Schwartz)Google’s Impressive “Conversational Search” Goes Live On Chrome (May 22, by Danny Sullivan)Google’s April Fools’ Day 2013 Joke-A-Thon: YouTube Shutdown, Google Nose & More (March 31, by Matt McGee)Penguin 5, With The Penguin 2.1 Spam-Filtering Algorithm, Is Now Live (October 4, by Danny Sullivan)Google Panda Update Version #24; 1.2% Of Search Queries Impacted (January 22, by Barry Schwartz)Penguin 4, With Penguin 2.0 Generation Spam-Fighting, Is Now Live (May 22, by Barry Schwartz)Google’s Hummingbird Takes Flight: SEOs Give Insight On Google’s New Algorithm (September 30, by Amy Gesenhues)Google’s Matt Cutts On Upcoming Penguin, Panda & Link Networks Updates (March 11, by Barry Schwartz)Post-PRISM, Google Confirms Quietly Moving To Make All Searches Secure, Except For Ad Clicks (September 23, by Danny Sullivan)

All ten stories are Google-related, a testament to the fact that Google dominates the attention of the search marketing industry with its 65-70 percent US market share (and even higher market share in other countries).

If you’re new to Search Engine Land, or if you missed the commotion over Google’s animal-based updates this year, see our article library to get caught up:

Google: HummingbirdGoogle: Penguin UpdateGoogle: Panda Update

The list above is limited to news that we published in 2013. As is the case with many websites that have been online as long as Search Engine Land, some of our “evergreen” content was also extremely popular during the year. Features like our What Is SEO? guide and The Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors were also among the most-viewed content this year, even though they predate this calendar year.

We’ve also compiled a similar list on our sister site, Marketing Land: Marketing Land�s Top News Stories Of 2013: New Devices, Hashtag Bowl, Google Reader & More.

On behalf of the Search Engine Land editorial team, thanks for reading us during 2013. Happy holidays to you and best wishes for 2014!

Google Still Working On Promoting Subject-Specific Authorities In Search Results

Remember the video Google’s Matt Cutts released in May, talking about the ten future Google SEO changes? One of those topics was about authority boost for authors and sites that are an authority on a topic? Well, Google is still working on that.

In TWiG, This Week in Google, episode 227, Google’s Matt Cutts said this is something his team is working on right now. In fact, it is not about demoting sites but rather promoting the “good guy.” Craig Moore transcribed the snippet, which takes place an hour and twenty minutes into the video. Matt said Google is working on promoting the content of authorities on topics, so if an expert writes on a topic on any site, Google will notice that and make sure the content ranks better than non-authorities.

Here is the transcription:

We have been working on a lot of different stuff. We are actually now doing work on how to promote good guys. So if you are an authority in a space, if you search for podcasts, you want to return something like Twit.tv. So we are trying to figure out who are the authorities in the individual little topic areas and then how do we make sure those sites show up, for medical, or shopping or travel or any one of thousands of other topics. That is to be done algorithmically not by humans … So page rank is sort of this global importance. The New York times is important so if they link to you then you must also be important. But you can start to drill down in individual topic areas and say okay if Jeff Jarvis (Prof of journalism) links to me he is an expert in journalism and so therefore I might be a little bit more relevant in the journalistic field. We’re trying to measure those kinds of topics. Because you know you really want to listen to the experts in each area if you can.

Google Denies A Major Update On December 17th

Yesterday, most of the Google search results tracking tools showed major changes in rankings within Google’s search results; but, during my analysis of webmaster communication within the discussion forums and social space, I saw very little discussion around changes in rankings at Google. Then, Google’s Matt Cutts implied there was no update on Twitter saying Google tries to minimize doing major updates right before the holidays.

Here is Matt Cutts tweet in response to being blamed for doing a major Penguin update yesterday:

@Bessian Actually, we try to minimize major updates right before the holidays.

� Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) December 18, 2013

 

The tracking tools disagree and show signs of major changes in the search results. I personally believe that something tripped up the tools, like user interface changes or something, but not ranking changes. Here are screen shots of the tools, including MozCast, SERPs.com, SERP Metrics and Algoroo, statistics for December 17th:

And from what I see in the webmaster discussion areas, very few are complaining about traffic or ranking shifts around December 17th.

Finally, Matt Cutts and Google has said time after time, they try not to do major updates during or before the holiday season.

Kenshoo: Global Paid Search Sales Revenue Grows 19% [Report]

The 2013 holiday season saw record-high increases in clicks, impressions, and revenues. A big part of this growth was driven by mobile devices and product listing ads (PLA), according to the 2013 Global Online Retail Seasonal Shopping Report by Kenshoo.

Global Increases in Spend, CTR and Revenues

Retailers prepared early this year for the shopping season, due to there being six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This led to a 34 percent year-over-year (YoY) increase in paid search spend, the report says.

The heightened investment in paid search enabled retail advertisers to achieve 26.9 percent YoY growth in clicks, as well as a 12.8 percent YoY increase in CTR. As a result, online shopping revenues were up 19 percent from last year.

A deeper look at specific regions reveals that U.S. marketers allocated 48.1 percent more in paid search spend in 2013 than last year. They were also able to spend more efficiently this year, with a 14.1 percent increase in CTR.

As expected, U.S. paid search retailers reaped the benefits of the uptick in paid search spend, as revenues during shopping season reached a record high, up 37 percent from 2012.

Tablets Gain Momentum

In 2013, paid search marketers allocated 34.4 percent of total spend to mobile devices, a 66.7 increase YoY.

Mobile devices also drove 36.7 percent of all global paid search clicks in the 2013 shopping season, up 32.1 percent from 2012. At 16.3 percent of total clicks, tablets became the biggest driver, 8.7 percent more than last year. In comparison, Phone clicks jumped 7.5 percent YoY to 20.4 percent of total clicks.

Tablets also saw a doubling in revenues, up from 7.8 percent of total revenues in 2012 to 18.9 percent in 2013. With almost one-fifth of total revenues coming from tablets, this shopping season marks a major turning point in the importance of this device for retailers and consumers, the report says.

Nevertheless, 77 percent of total revenues still came from desktop computers this year.

PLAs Experienced Enormous Growth

Retailers were more adept at using PLAs and nearly doubled their spend on this ad format in 2013. Click-through rates on PLAs reached an average of 3.3 percent, up 30 percent from last year. The increased efficiency enabled businesses to generate 115.6 percent more clicks from only 65.4 percent more impressions YoY, according to the report.

PLAs performed better than traditional paid search ad metrics, with CTR 26.7 percent higher while the average cost-per-click was 15.3 percent less.

Meanwhile, total global revenues from PLAs increased 417.4 percent YoY, translating to nearly a nine to one ($8.62) return for this investment.

Kenshoo also provided advertiser suggestions in this report, including:

Anticipate consumer shopping behavior and react to market activityCapitalize on the PLA opportunityEmbrace the mobile shift and establish a cross-device strategyDon't be afraid to go big during the peak shopping season

Kenshoo analyzed data from its clients (advertisers and agencies), who conducted paid search programs for retailers from November 1, 2012 through December 9, 2013. Download the full report from Kenshoo.

This article was originally published on ClickZ.

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.

A New Direction for SEO in 2014: The Secure Search Manifesto

SEO marketing finally matured in 2013. With more than 500 algorithm changes a year, keeping pace with innovation was a source of confusion and frustration for some people, yet provided great clarity for others.

The rapid pace of change in our market, fueled by the convergence of earned, owned, and paid media has meant that the traditional SEO mindset moved from keyword-centric methodologies toward new content-centric, and key revenue based strategies.

Google's move to make 100 percent of search keyword data "(not provided)" in September finally forced SEO marketers to rethink their strategies. Some people failed to identify trends, and struggled to adapt, while others took a giant innovative leap into the world of secure search.

In 2014 we'll see a new content and page-centric SEO workflow form the backbone of, what I like to call, a new "Secure Search Manifesto." This new manifesto allows you to actually match your SEO and content marketing strategies to measurable business outcomes.

2013: The Year SEO Changed Forever

SEO changed forever in 2013. The evolution of SEO and the focus on content started a long time ago. Google's Hummingbird update "rubber stamped" the essential need to focus on quality content marketing and, in conjunction, secure search did the same with regard to "adapt or die" pure keyword rank checking philosophies.

Google began giving SEO marketers signals about how their model and algorithms would change in 2011. Panda and Penguin gave clear signals on the shift to content and relevancy and the removal of "black hat" strategies. The gradual rise in the number of keywords "(not provided)" signaled an impending paradigm shift in the keyword model market to a content-centric model.

In September 2013 marketers witnessed the single biggest change to happen in this industry since the introduction of off-page factors and backlinks. Secure search ensured that adapting to change was no longer an option but a necessity.

The Dangerous Perception: Old school strategies can still work

Any fundamental shift in a market brings with it opportunity but also resistance and fear. Many marketers still maintain the misconceived perception that SEO is dead – a very mute and irrelevant topic.

A far more dangerous perception is that although SEO has changed, the way you work doesn't have to change. Let me be clear:

In a pre-"(not provided)" world, marketers had the luxury of having access to traffic, conversion, and revenue data by keywords.In the new "(not provided)" world, marketers no longer have access to this data.Continuing to look at just keyword data won't work for your business.Marketers that still focus on an outdated dependence on rank checking tools will see their SEO performance decline rapidly.Moving from old school to new school tactics across page, content, search, and social sets you up for success in 2014.

The Reality: Content, Page and Analytics Integration now are King and Key Strategy

A renewed importance and focus on quality content was reflected in the Hummingbird change that ran in parallel to the move to secure search. For the forward thinking marketer this was a clear signal that SEO is in fact more alive than ever.

Forward thinking marketers have been evolving and developing content and on-page strategies in line with Google innovation. They changed the way that they work and now look to innovative ways to integrate analytics data to restore visibility no longer available with secure search.

Organizations that can mirror and adapt to a new SEO workflow stand to benefit at the expense of their competitors.

2014: The New Secure Search Manifesto

Adapting to the epic change and shift in our market requires adapting to, and focusing on, a new direction in SEO. Here are four key truths about secure search that you can use as a guide to formulate your strategies in 2014.

1. Analytics is the Source of Truth

Secure search changed the way that we think about SEO forever. In 2014, new SEO reporting requires a shift to measuring real (not estimated) business metrics at a page level. This includes making sure that you measure traffic, conversions, and revenue.

In 2013 many marketers viewed secure search shift resulting in a technology or integration problem. The best marketers saw this as a logical outcome of a shift to page-centric SEO. Your web pages, are what will attract visitors, drive conversions and help you measure organic revenue in the New Year.

2014 Tips and Tactics:

The most effective way to manage your SEO programs going forward is to make pages the center of your SEO world.Pull actual data from your web analytics at the page level in order to do this.Understand what is happening with your traffic, conversions, and revenue as a result of secure search and prioritize you work accordingly.2. Rank Still Matters

In 2013 the meaning and focus on "what rank is" changed rapidly. The convergence of earned, owned, and paid media was reflected in the search engine results pages (SERPs). The integration of search, social, mobile, global, and local, and the growth and adoption of mobile, changed the way content appeared in the SERPs.

SEO success is now the gateway to measuring the ultimate business impact of your content – driving a greater keyword rank for your page's is essential and tracking your keyword performance still matters. Rank still matters in 2014. It always will.

2014 Tips and Tactics:

Focus on accurate rank in 2014 – this means having a robust methodology in place that takes account of spikes and drops in traffic and not focusing on generic rank reports that do not take into account these shifts.Make sure that you measure rank and performance by device type – research shows that rank and conversions on tablets, phone, and desktop vary dramatically.

Ensure that you are measuring and tracking universal/blended rank. This includes looking at Carousel results. Remember, there aren't always 10 results per page.

In 2014, rank means ensuring that you have complete visibility into how content appears in the SERPs by device type (mobile, tablet, desktop) in universal listings, and by location (city and country).

3. Page and Content are the Center of the Universe

It's essential that your approach to content in 2014 is done the "Hummingbird way." Content on your pages are what attract visitors, drive conversions and bring in revenue. The most effective way to manage SEO programs in 2014 is to make pages the center of your SEO world.

2014 Tips and Tactics:

Think like a content marketer, analyze like an SEO.Analyze your content and data at a page level in 2014.Integrate and work closely with GWMT to correlate page and keyword data.Use this data to understand your SEO and content performance across revenue, conversions, and traffic at a page level.Set up and report on individual and group pages total performance.

"The industry has become overly dependent on keyword referral as a data point," said Chris Keating, VP, SEO, CO and Data Feeds, Performics. "We will continue to leverage other search engine-provided data, but our main source of advanced metrics will cover page-level performance, share of voice, and other enterprise measurements."

4. All Data is Relevant and Connected

In 2014, you'll need to utilize a rich set of data sources to ensure that you have a complete, 20/20 vision, on how your content and SEO is performing. Secure search brought about challenge for some but opportunities for many.

All structured data has a meaning and is connected across search, social, and digital marketing. The opportunity manifests itself in analytical integration and how you connect the search, social, and content dots on your web page.

2014 Tips and Tactics:

Utilize all your data from multiple data sources (such as Majestic SEO and Google Analytics)Ensure that you utilize Google Webmaster Tools data to restore partial keyword visibility.Integrate this data to form new format keyword reports.Build comprehensive dashboards that collate all rank, keyword, social, and content data in one place – do this at a local and global level.

You can download the Secure Search Manifesto and checklist from BrightEdge here.

Conclusion

Old habits die hard in SEO. However, adapting to change is the new imperative that marketers in our industry have to follow in 2014. SEO has always been the most predominant channel in online marketing and it always will be.

So, what has changed? People's perception of what SEO is has changed.

SEO is contentSEO is socialSEO is analyticsSEO is marketing

Google's shift toward 100 percent secure search meant that the metrics and methodology SEO practitioners had been using needed to change.

The role of SEO as the driver of earned media has become even more important as part of the content marketing revolution. The key to unlocking this potential lies in gaining a 360-degree view of how your content is performing across all your web pages and attributing this to revenue.

It's time to build a new dashboard – a content performance dashboard.

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.

Facebook Likes, Shares Don't Impact Google Search Rankings [Study]

Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting, has done a groundbreaking study on the impact of Facebook Likes and Shares on SEO, specifically Google, as well as what role profiles play on content shared via status updates.

While there has been a lot of speculation over the years about whether Facebook activity is a factor in Google's rankings, there's been no real hard evidence either way. Enge's new study changes that.

Enge did two separate studies on the impact of Facebook. The first dealt specifically with Likes while the second dealt with Shares.

Facebook Likes 'Not in the Picture'

After creating two different web pages on three different domains, he had friends and Fiverr users drive likes to each of the pages. Despite each of those pages being liked nearly 900 times each, Google never crawled are indexed any of the six pages. So Google clearly is not using Facebook likes to discover or index new content.

There are couple reasons why Google doesn't seem to be using Facebook Likes when it comes to discovery and indexing. While Googlebot can execute the Facebook Like script, it has no idea which people Liked it. When looking at links, for example, Google is able to assign trust to the links based on who is doing the linking. But when it comes to Likes, Google is unable to assign a similar kind of "score" based on who is doing the liking because it simply doesn't know. Therefore it can't determine that one page may be liked by very influential people while a second page is liked by only fake Facebook profiles.

"Likes are simply not in the picture," Enge said. "The only data Google can possibly get is the number of Likes on a page if the page has a Like widget on it, but they have no idea as to who has Liked the page. For that reason there is no value to that information to them. I think it is pretty conclusive that they don't use it for discovery, indexing, or ranking."

Facebook Shares 'Inconclusive'

Google indexing based on Facebook shares was also tested. They asked over 50 people to share different sets of pages, however each page only ended up being shared about 10 times each, although some of the shares were made by fairly high profile people in the industry, people you would expect would have a bit more influence for ranking factors.

Again, although the sample size was fairly small in terms of the number of shares, Google didn't crawl or index the shared pages either. However, the results could possibly have been different with a larger sample size.

"The data on Facebook shares is less conclusive," Enge said. "It suggests that Google does not use it for discovery, indexing, or ranking. I believe that this is in fact true, but others can choose to point out that we don't have a comprehensive data set here, and they would be right. However, our conclusion (that they don't use shares) is also consistent with what Google says about Facebook signals as a ranking factor."

Crawling & Indexing of Facebook Profile Pages

Profile pages are also looked at for potential ranking factors. Google has the ability to crawl public profiles and see who your friends are when crawling the mobile version of Facebook.

To get more Friends shown, you need to scroll the page down, and when you do that, Javascript executes that pulls some additional Friends up and displays them. As you scroll down more, more and more Friends are loaded. It is possible for Google to get the entire Friends list in an automated way, but they probably don't because of the nature of the Javascript. There is no separate version of the page for users without javascript.

However, on the mobile version of the Facebook site, there is a clean link on the Friends page to "show more friends". This is a simple text link and it is not scrolling dependent. We can't conclusively decide that Google is pulling this data, but clearly if they are motivated to get this data they can. For that reason, for purposes of this article, we will assume that they do!

While there's no clear-cut evidence whether Google is or isn't doing this, the opportunity is there, which also means that it is potentially beneficial for users to be friends with high profile users, and those with strong profile pages in Facebook.

One interesting thing was that Enge also discovered that Google has indexed a large number of Facebook posts – 1.87 billion to be exact. So next they looked at those with high PageRank profile pages, from people linking to their profile page, to determine the frequency that those higher authority users saw their post content indexed. However, while the results showed that some of their posts were being indexed, the percentage of content indexed from the profile page was in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 percent, depending on the age of the post.

On those profile pages, images seem to be the least likely by far to be indexed by Google, while links and text did very well. Videos vary depending on the age of the post, and while they were ahead of images, they were far behind to both link and text. But even for these prominent profile pages, Google doesn't seem to be crawling every single thing on the page and indexing it, but there doesn't seem to be a specific reason for the inconsistency.

All the data collected was made available publicly for full disclosure purposes and can be viewed in the spreadsheets here.

Conclusion

While Google has the ability to use Facebook influence in their algorithm, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Google is using it to discover, index, or rank any content on the web at this time.

This shouldn't dissuade people from using Facebook for marketing purposes, because shares and updates clearly can deliver traffic and exposure.

But from an SEO perspective, you don't need to worry that you need to share every new piece of content on Facebook in hopes you rank higher. Of course, Google being Google, they could change the role of Facebook in the algorithm at any time, but right now there is no influence by using Facebook strictly for SEO value.

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.

6 Reasons Why BuzzFeed Destroys Your Content Strategy

Buzzfeed. That horrific amalgamation of Internet drivel. That endless stream of GIFs, "Top 21" Lists (please note the tasteful choice of only six points on this list), memes, and complaints about every age between 16 and 30. That guilty pleasure, just a click away from your Facebook feed to distract you during work hours (wash your hands afterwards).

There is much to disparage about the content that BuzzFeed spews out, crowdsourcing the college generation to in turn entertain that same age group. What makes it worse, truly, frighteningly, maddeningly worse, though, is the next part.

BuzzFeed's content strategy is far, far better than yours.

Oh, you can make complaints, raise your nose – your brand or product is higher class – above this nonsensical drivel that somehow manages to show up on your Twitter or Facebook, or perhaps by some twist of fate your Google+ the one time you checked it in the last three weeks.

But, here is the sad truth of the matter. That drivel did make it into your feed. And it likely does so regularly. Buzzfeed is doing something more than 90 percent of brands completely fail to do – executing an effective content strategy.

How is this possible? Here are six reasons why Buzzfeed destroys your content strategy:

1. BuzzFeed Isn't Afraid to Take Risks

BuzzFeed editors aren't spending hours checking whether fonts in images match approved brand guidelines. They don't fuss about with color palettes or whether someone will be offended by a picture choice. They post what they think will work.

2. BuzzFeed Has Something for Everyone

BuzzFeed may have a target demographic (likely early 20ish aged college students), but the scope of their topic choices shows they are not afraid to chase down engagement wherever they can find it. Forget customer profiling; they don't discriminate.

3. BuzzFeed's Content Can be Digested in a Matter of Seconds

Internet attention spans being what they are; this is a serious plus. You can scroll through an article in second and determine whether you want to give it more attention.

4. BuzzFeed's Content has Strong Visual Hooks

When you boil it down, BuzzFeed is probably 90 percent pictures, 10 percent text. This is a magical ratio for viral content. Even if animated GIFs were outlawed tomorrow, the image-heavy style of BuzzFeed articles would still work.

5. BuzzFeed's Site is Highly Social

If you want to interact with BuzzFeed, your only real choices involve social platforms. Social buttons are front and center in the UI, and even comments are driven with Facebook profiles.

6. BuzzFeed's Content is Endless

We all know that a regular content schedule improves engagement over time, but BuzzFeed takes this to a completely different level. New content is pushed out several times an hour during peak periods. At this scale, it doesn't matter if half your posts fail because that still means two posts an hour are succeeding. (See point number 1.)

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.

Google 'Let’s Go Caroling' Easter Egg Turns Your Smartphone Into a Holiday Karaoke Machine

Google has created a very festive Easter egg for smartphone users. On your mobile browser, simply do a Google search for [let’s go caroling] and a menu will pop up allowing you to select from five different carols and turn your smartphone into an instant karaoke machine.

There are five carols currently included, "Jingle Bells", "Up on the House Top", "Deck the Halls", "O Christmas Tree", and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". When you select one, the cursor bounces along with the lyrics just as it would on a karaoke machine.

The Easter egg isn't Android specific. It works on all mobile browsers.

Google has a long history of doing hidden surprises in their search results, such as [do a barrel roll], which produce "Star Fox" inspired results. Typing in [google in 1998] allowed searchers to see Google search results as they appeared back in 1998. Google has also included Easter eggs in search results for [the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything] (the answer is 42), as well as [define anagram}(“Did you mean nerd fame again”?)

Image Credit: Phandroid

See what's on the Agenda!
Mar 31 - Apr 3 - ClickZ Live is a brand new global conference series kicking off in New York City. Learn how to improve customer engagement and attain maximum ROI, and gain invaluable digital marketing and advertising take-aways.Find out more ››
*Super Saver Rates expire Jan 24.