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Year: 2018

Marketing 

Former Facebook and Google Employees Form Coalition Against Tech Addiction

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If there’s one group of people who best know the negative effects of tech addiction, it would be the Silicon Valley technologists who helped companies like Facebook and Google implement methods to steer the public’s attention. Now, former employees of these tech companies have banded together to speak against the addiction they had a hand in creating. “We were on the inside, we know what the companies measure,” former Google in-house ethicist Tristan Harris explained. “We know how they talk, and we know how the engineering works.” Harris is the co-founder…

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Bing 

SMX Advanced Recap: Bing’s Fabrice Canel keynote

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For the opening session of SMX Advanced, we were treated to a keynote by Bing’s Fabrice Canel. Here are my notes from that session. Fabrice started by pointing out that search is becoming more intelligent. For example, search engines are getting better at sentiment analysis. If you search on whether video games are good for you, you’ll get one set of results, and if you search on whether they are bad for you, you’ll get a different set of results. You can also get multiperspective answers offering different opinions. Bing…

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google 

Google Posts adds ‘call now’ button

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Google My Business has added the ability for businesses to add a “call now” button to their Google Posts. Before, the call-to-action options on the Google Posts for the “What’s New” box included “book,” “order online,” “buy,” “learn more,” “sign up” and “get offer.” Now Google has a new option that lists the business’s phone number. Here is a screen shot: When I tested the “call now” button, it put in my business’s toll-free 800 phone number. I did not have the ability to change it to a different number.…

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Social 

Can’t Tell if Your Social Media Campaign is Really Working? Here’s What You Need to Know

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The number of companies integrating social media into their marketing campaigns has been growing steadily over the past decade. Some businesses even rely solely on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to promote their goods and services. However, measuring the impact these campaigns have on their business remains a challenge. A 2015 CMO survey underlined this difficulty, with only 15 percent of participating marketers being able to quantitatively measure the effectiveness of their social media marketing plans. Meanwhile, a recent MDG Advertising infographic shows that not much has changed with…

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SEM 

PPC’s #fakenews: 9 ways bad numbers might look good

news

Today’s news landscape makes it tough to separate truth from fiction. Between news hackers and special-interest propaganda, it’s harder than ever to find a source of information you can trust. Search marketing should be immune to it all. After all, we’re a metrics-first business. We count clicks, we tally conversions and we do difficult math to calculate return on investment (ROI). But did you know it’s super-easy to fake your way to seemingly good performance, due to rookie errors, bad habits or dirty tricks? Here’s how to arm yourself against…

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SEO 

How to be proactive and prevent a negative SEO campaign — Part 3

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In previous articles, we discussed what is and isn’t negative SEO and how to determine if you’ve actually been hit by negative SEO. With the basics out of the way, it’s now time to look at how you can keep your website safe from negative SEO (search engine optimization) campaigns. To start, I have some bad news: There is no such thing as being hackproof. And there is no such thing as being negative SEO-proof! All you can reasonably do is take action to lessen the probability of becoming a victim…

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Latest News 

4 Accounting Software to Consider Using for Your Small Business in 2018

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Small business owners understand how crucial it is to have a handle on their finances. Unfortunately, most small businesses can’t afford to hire a full-time accountant. However, a good accounting software makes it easier to monitor business accounts. It can also track expenses and bills, creates invoices, manages inventory and generates reports that help evaluate how a business is doing. There are several factors that one should consider when choosing accounting software. An interface that’s easy to navigate and understand is one such factor. Small business owners should also consider…

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Marketing 

5 Ways to Establish Core Brand Values

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Your brand is more than just your company or product name. It’s one of the best ways of setting yourself apart from your competitors. Unfortunately, many business owners are confused as to what “branding” really means and how it affects their company. In a nutshell, your brand value reflects the values your company holds. It embodies your company’s history, vision, and mission. It also stands as your promise to your client with regards to what they can expect from the products and services you offer. Consider brands like Nike and…

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Bing 

Bing Ads recommends updating final ad URLs to HTTPS if supported

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With Google starting to mark HTTP URLs as “not secure” in its Chrome browser this month, Bing Ads is recommending advertisers update their final ad URLs to HTTPS. For sites that support HTTPS, Bing Ads suggests three options for bulk updating HTTP URLs. The bulk uploads feature in the Bing Ads web interface. Bing Ads Editor. Bing Ads API, for those with access. If you’ve got a list of to-do’s, you might check your analytics to see how much traffic from your Bing campaigns comes from Chrome and prioritize this…

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google 

Google’s URL inspection tool now available for all users

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Google has confirmed on Twitter that two weeks after releasing the URL inspection tool in the new Google Search Console, it is now available to all users. When the new tool was first released, it was only available to a limited number of users. Google began rolling it out slowly to more and more users, and at this point in time, 15 days after the first announcement of the tool, Google says the tool is available for all. You can access the tool within the new Google Search Console over…

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