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Author: Search Influence Alumni

Google AdWords Cram Session: Don’t Let Google Kick You in The Ads
To start off this post: yes, we are a Google Partner. No, we do not do Google’s laundry or cook romantic meals for Google. And we try our best not to steal Google’s side of the bed. We are, however, certified and qualified to help you with all aspects of your online advertising campaigns by building an appropriately aggressive website marketing strategy. So what makes us certified and qualified? Well, let me bring your attention back to our lovely Partner: Google.

The Perks of Partnership

Being a Google Partner has lots of perks. From access to live trainings to beta testing opportunities to extra support and professional networking (the list goes on and on, but feel free to peruse here), you can bet we love being a Google Partner. However, along with the perks come some requirements, one of which is obtaining certifications in Google’s products and services.

One of these certifications focuses on proficiency in using Google AdWords, Google’s online advertising platform. This platform allows users to market their products or services in the Google search engine and affiliated sites. Still following? Great! Now, in order to become a certified Google AdWords advertiser, you will need to pass a couple of tests. In the upcoming paragraphs, I’m going to give you (1) a quick overview of each AdWords exam, and (2) a few general test-taking tips. You’re welcome.

Google AdWords Exams

There are a total of four exams for AdWords certification: Advertising Fundamentals, Advanced Search, Advanced Display, and Video Advertising. Google requires you to pass the Fundamentals test along with at least one of the advanced tests in order to become certified. However, here at SI, we like to take both advanced tests for good measure. We’re thorough like that. After getting certified in AdWords, you then have the option of taking the Video Advertising exam.

1. Advertising Fundamentals – 2 Hours. 90 Questions.
This is the exam that covers all the basic features of AdWords. Questions will pop up on topics like campaign and ad group management, ad formats, and budgeting and bidding options. In order to pass this exam, you’ll need to achieve an 85% or higher. The good news? If you achieve a passing score, it’s valid for two years!

2. Advanced Search – 2 Hours. 98 Questions.
This exam goes more into detail on best practices for managing campaigns on Google’s Search Network and Search Partners. Questions will be on topics like ad and site quality, AdWords API, understanding ad performance, and performance optimizations. In order to pass this exam, you’ll need to achieve an 80% or higher. The validity period for this exam is one year.

3. Advanced Display – 2 hours. 88 Questions.
This exam focuses on best practices for advertising on the Google Display Network and on YouTube. Questions on this exam test your ability to plan, design, implement, measure, and refine display and video advertising campaigns. In order to pass this exam, you’ll need a score of 70% or higher. The validity period for this exam is one year.

4. Video Advertising – 1.5 Hours. 74 Questions.
This exam focuses on video ad campaign creation and management on YouTube and the Display Network. In order to pass, you’ll need a score of 85% or higher. The validity period for this exam is one year.

General Tips

If you’re hoping for more test-specific tips, don’t worry…more posts on AdWords certifications to come. However, to get you started on your studying, here are a couple of general test-taking tips!

1. First and foremost: have a plan. (What is this? Standardized Testing 101?) Don’t cram all the studying into one day or even one week and then rush through the exam hoping you’ll pass. Do this instead:
- Set a realistic test date for yourself. Might I recommend giving yourself a one-month study period?
- Take a look at the study guides provided by Google and come up with a time frame that will allow you to go over and understand each section of the study guide thoroughly.
Google provides you with a wealth of studying material for each exam because Google wants you to succeed. Use the materials provided. Stick to a timeline. And don’t panic!

2. Which brings me to my second tip: don’t panic. Google is a very forgiving partner and is big on second chances! If you don’t pass on your first try, you can try again in seven days.

3. Log into AdWords and play around on the platform a little. Not only will this help familiarize you with the many aspects of the AdWords platform, but it will also give you a point of reference when going over the Google study guides for each exam. Plus, haven’t you heard of the phrase “hands-on learning?” It very much applies here.

On that note, I’m going to cut myself short so you can process all the information you just read. If you’re interested in becoming AdWords Certified, click here. If you’re interested in getting some professional help from an awesome team of AdWords Certified Individuals, click around. You’re in the right place. We’re a Google Partner, after all!

Thanks to Search Engine Land for the Google AdWords Image, to Google for the cute Google cartoon, and Renee Jacques for the cute cat gif!
December 11, 2014
A Tale of Two Strategies: PR & SEO
Last month, I sat in on a webinar with a few fellow Influencers about how to integrate PR into SEO strategy. Given that I used to work in PR and am constantly looking for ways to combine the two industries, attending this was a no-brainer.

Integrating SEO & PR Best Practices

Samuel Scott, Senior Director of SEO & Digital Marketing at The Cline Group in Tel Aviv, took us through how to best integrate SEO and PR best practices into a holistic, integrated marketing strategy. After all, traditional public relations is the best way to build brand awareness and earn quality, authoritative backlinks – the SEO dream.

Authoritative Link-Building

“If I had to choose between your average link builder and an expert PR professional, who knew how to approach and interact with media outlets and presented well on camera, I’d go for the public relations person any day of the week.” -Everett Sizemore, seOverflow.

Now obviously if you have to choose between your average anything and an expert, you’re going to choose the expert. What Everett is saying here is that good PR leads to optimal placements, and that placements lead to links.

PR+SEO In Action

A press release we recently wrote for a client was picked up by WGCL-TV and Digital Journal, two sites with extremely high domain authorities (74 and 85, respectively). Without even really trying, we were able to build the client links on two very authoritative sites! In the week and a half following the press release, overall traffic to the client’s site increased by more than 10 percent and referral traffic increased by nearly 60 percent.

Working Together Makes Everything Better

There are a few things that SEO pros can learn from PR experts, and vice versa:
- What PR can learn from SEO:
  - Which traffic from what outlets tend to convert the most and bounce the least?
  - Are PR efforts increasing branded searches?
- What SEO can learn from PR:
  - From what outlets (and types of outlets) is it easiest to get coverage & links?
  - How are reporters and others are responding to the company’s online presence?
Both SEO and PR should utilize data such as placements, traffic, conversions and bounce rate to answer the questions above and further hone their strategies into a single streamlined, holistic, integrated strategy. It’s time to stop thinking about “traditional” and “online” marketing as two separate things – they’re quickly becoming just “marketing.”

If you take one thing from the Mozinar (Moz’s punny-but-cute name for webinar), let it be this: Don’t think about how to get links. Think about how to get coverage and publicity! The links will then come naturally as a result.
December 4, 2014
New Gmail Inbox Has It All, But Can It Separate Naughty From Nice?
Always on a mission to improve user experience, Google recently released a fresh new look to “Inbox by Gmail.” This update provided additional labels for better organization of your inbox, reminders, snooze options, attachment previews, and more.

Invite Only

Recent buzz about Inbox by Gmail has circulated, especially during the first phase of the invite-only system. People are curious about Inbox by Gmail because they want to be part of this exclusive group. If you have yet to receive an invite, send an email to [email protected], and ask politely. Maybe Google will invite you in their next circulation.

Organize With Labels

Google announced Inbox by Gmail “is a better way to get back to what matters.” For this reason, Google created more categories of labels to keep emails organized. Gmail currently bundles emails under tabs “Primary,” “Social,” and “Promotions.” Inbox by Gmail will have many more label tabs available, like “Updates,” “Finance,” “Purchases,” “Travel,” and “Forums.” You also will have the option to create your own labels. This exciting feature organizes emails for you before they arrive in your general inbox.

Timeline

Warning, your general inbox will look different. When an email belongs to a label, it will be automatically placed within its designated tab. In your general inbox, you will only see who sent the email. This way, you will have less emails showing in your general inbox.

Mark Your Mail

Other features: you can mark emails as “important,” as a “to do,” you can add reminders to emails (with extra information like phone numbers), and you can snooze an email to get it out of your inbox until you’re ready to view it.

More Features

You can see the highlights of your email without opening the message. The new inbox previews reservation information, online orders, and pictures. You can also get real-time flight updates and speed dial a friend – all from your Gmail account.

Promotional Email

There are two reasons why I’m not excited as a professional, serving my clients who send the occasional promotional emails:
1. Promotional emails are now one click further away from the target audience. These types of emails are thrown under a tab and may never be seen.
2. In their general inbox people will only see a preview of all of your promotional emails. This will include the name of the person or business that sent the promotional email, but not the subject. This update will have a huge impact on the open rate of promotional emails.
Three tips for promotional email to pass the new application:
1. Address the email to the name of a person rather than a business so the email looks more personal.
2. People will scan the “Promotions” or “Social” inbox very fast, so you need to be unique and engaging to be noticed. Your subject line is extremely important. Perform some A/B testing to find out which type of subjects score best.
3. Be relevant – send people emails they would want to read.
Inbox By Gmail: Yes Or No?

For personal-use and some business purposes, this new update deserves a big resounding YES! For people or businesses who send promotional emails, this demographic echoes a big fat NO!

Get an invite and let us know by email what you think of Inbox by Gmail. Your email will end up in our label “VIM” – Very Important Mail.
December 1, 2014
Don’t Be An Advertising Grinch: Grow Your Profits 3 Sizes This Holiday Season
Can you believe we’re already on the verge of December? Are you prepared for the holidays? I’m not asking if you have your Christmas tree (or Hanukkah bush) picked out or if your travel plans are confirmed…we’re talking about advertising, and specifically online advertising. Hopefully, you’ve already adopted online advertising into your business’s ad strategy (if not, I just happen to know of an exceptional company that can help you get started), but this year, having an online presence for your products or services is more crucial than ever.

Therefore, it’s only appropriate that we at Search Influence help prepare you and your business for the upcoming season! Here are 8 Questions, Tips, and Best Practices to get you in the right mindset and bring some holiday cheer to your ad strategy.

1. What channels are you using?

It’s common knowledge that there are a plethora of ways you can reach potential customers online, whether it’s via email marketing, PPC, social media, etc., but which is the best for your message?
It’s easy to get overwhelmed if you think about utilizing all of these channels, especially if you consider how much it could cost you. So if you don’t have an unlimited budget, try and think about it this way: which channels are you already utilizing that you can focus on during the holidays? Which one (or two) channels might you add, even if it’s just for the holiday season, in order to build awareness and not get lost amongst all the other businesses advertising during the holidays? As with anything else during the holidays, the most important thing is to try not to spread yourself too thin. It’s better to put more budget and effort into a couple of channels than to lose your message by trying to use them all.

2. Let the Christmas creativity flow!

Your audience is already primed for the holidays – feed into it!

Creative is extremely important this time of year. Keep your ad copy fresh by changing up your creative from the rest of the year and integrating topical messages into your ads. And don’t worry about sounding cheesy — this is one of the few times you can get away with it! When people are bombarded with holiday messages, think outside of the box. How do your products or services apply to this time of year? For example, are you a culinary business with an audience inclined to embrace your new recipes and cooking supplies at this time of year? Or are you a travel agency whose key demographic might be looking to escape from the cold weather with one of your vacation packages? There are many lenses you can look through when selling your product, so don’t lose sight of the way your consumer will be feeling during the holidays. Just ask yourself: how can your business/brand help enhance the message of the holidays?

3. What are you prepared to offer?

Use “giftable” language.

This is crucial, especially if you have an online business or utilize e-commerce. It’s the holiday season after all, so people are looking everywhere for – and expecting to see – holiday deals. Remember to use gift-centric language in your ad copy. Could you market your service as a gift for your customers? Make it less about you trying to sell them something and more about what they’ll be getting from you if they turn to you during the most competitive time of year.

Think about advertising sales/offers/discounts that are time sensitive. Putting out an offer that must be utilized before the new year is a good option because it encourages people to buy now, and it could be more trackable and traceable to a holiday campaign.

On the other hand, if you’re a “resolution-related” company, your holiday advertising might expand past Christmas into the new year. No one wants to hear about gym memberships when they’re wolfing down the cranberry sauce.

Finally, if you’re going to advertise offers during the holidays, be sure to utilize offers that are truly compelling. Don’t announce something as including free shipping unless it is paired with something else; your message certainly won’t stand out if you’re offering only free shipping along with everyone else.

4. Christmas isn’t the only holiday in December,

nor should it be the only thing on which you focus your advertising efforts.
Is your product or business Christian-centric? If not, would you risk alienating a subset of your audience if you mention “Christmas” in your ad copy and/or message? This may seem like a minor opportunity, but it could be a great chance to demonstrate self-awareness and show your customers how well you know them.

Additionally, be sure to think about the time surrounding the holidays, not just the holidays themselves. For example, if you’re utilizing a mobile campaign, use the pre-holiday weeks to increase your customer base and drive mobile app installs ahead of the holiday season, and focus your post-holiday time for new device owners activating apps and devices for the first time. Lastly, remember that a lot happens in the buying cycle after December 25th. Consider using after-holiday clearance or Boxing Day specials, and keep in mind New Years and everything that comes with that – hello, resolutions!

5. Think device.

If you’re an online advertiser, multi-device targeting for this time of year is crucial. Consumers are omni-channel. People shop online and in-store; therefore, you should really boost your visibility and advertise on as many devices as possible. This may sound easy, as on Google Adwords all you need for this is to make sure your device targeting is set to “All.” However, just because your ads can show up on mobile or tablet does not mean they are automatically optimized to do so. Here are some thoughts to keep you focused on multi-device targeting:
6. Account for Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

The holiday season seems to be getting earlier and earlier each year. This year, the retail space seems to have forgotten about Thanksgiving by skipping straight from Halloween to Christmas.

Technically, you as an advertiser should be thinking similarly (thoughts about holiday shopping and marketing do start in October), but it’s certainly ok if you’re late to the party! Everyone knows the real “gifting” takes off around Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

That being said, there are certain days that have evolved online regarding holiday shopping. If you’re into e-commerce, you’re already familiar with Cyber Monday, but it might help to organize your holiday advertising efforts even more granularly, as every year there seem to be more “dates to remember.”

1. Black Friday – November 28th

2. Cyber Monday – December 1st – keep in mind: Facebook announced that this year, 25% of online shoppers will place their orders from a mobile phone on Black Friday and Cyber Monday! (https://www.facebook.com/business/success).

3. Green Monday – December 8th – usually the shipping cut off for most postal outlets to get standard-shipped packages to customer before Christmas.

4. Free Shipping Day – December 18th – a one-day event held in mid-December. Merchants are encouraged to offer free shipping with guaranteed delivery before Christmas. Like I said earlier, don’t think free shipping alone will give you an edge above everyone else – but it certainly helps! Sign up to be listed as a participant of Free Shipping Day here.

5. Super Saturday – December 20th – the last Saturday before Christmas, Super Saturday is a big revenue day, as it technically marks the end of the shopping season that is considered to begin on Black Friday. Super Saturday targets last-minute shoppers. Typically, this day is a good day to offer one-day sales in an effort to accrue a great deal of last-minute Christmas revenue.

6. Boxing Day – December 26th – As mentioned in #5, people are opening the new devices they received over the holidays, downloading apps, and/or looking to trade gifts in for something else. Online and in-store advertisers oftentimes offer deeper discounts on remaining merchandise, which can be a great way to get rid of leftover inventory.

7. Social Media Presence is Crucial.

The holidays are a very popular time for social media presence; your audience is online more often, whether it’s for shopping or to connect with friends and family. Therefore, make sure you increase your presence as well! Up your post load, produce more articles, and sponsor more updates to make sure you’re seen by your target audience and to show them you’re not “out of office” for the holidays.

However, you may have to do some shopping yourself in order to make this happen. Advertising inventory prices will be rising for the holidays across Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, so you must decide if you want to expand your budget in order to adequately boost your social media involvement.

Before you grinch out on this, consider that your potential profit might be worth a slightly (and temporarily) elevated budget. After all, Facebook reports that 46% of shoppers who used Facebook before shopping used it to look for deals, promotions and holiday gift ideas, and they often discovered these things through their news feed. (Facebook Holiday Webinar).

8. Stay organized!

This last “tip” isn’t so much about online advertising as it is about advertising in general! Like anything concerning your business, staying organized is key, but it can be even trickier around the holidays when we seem to be juggling our personal and professional lives more than usual.

Regarding your online presence, we recommend creating a promotional calendar before the month even begins. Know what days you’d like to run what ads, and become as comfortable as possible with the seasonality of the month. You can also take advantage of the ad-scheduling features on certain ad platforms – this way, you can create your ads, post promotions, sponsored updates, etc. ahead of time and then schedule them to run on certain dates/times without you having to be around the computer.

Simply put, plan ahead as much as possible! This will leave less work for you to do later when you’re trying to baste a turkey, or when your luggage inexplicably gets lost by the airline…

Now some might think this goes without saying, but remember to breathe. You do not need to implement all of these suggestions into your ad strategy! Whatever you do decide to do this holiday season, the most important thing is to document and remember the results for next year and to ultimately strengthen your marketing strategy. Just because it’s the holiday season doesn’t mean you need to stress about your advertising. But unlike the holidays, just try not to get your family too involved.

Image Sources:

Brace Yourselves

Important Shopping Dates

The Grinch
November 24, 2014
We’re Thankful For Our Newest Influencers!

Great team members are as essential to our business as mashed potatoes are to Thanksgiving dinner. They’re the gravy to our SEO campaigns, the stuffing to our—you get the picture! Get to know a little bit about each of our newest influencers:

Ryan Eugene – Junior Account Associate

Born and raised in Silver Spring, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC, Ryan graduated from The College of William and Mary in May 2013. After working as a track and basketball coach at the National Cathedral School in DC, he moved to New Orleans to experience all there is to love about the Big Easy and be closer to his grandmother who lives in Thibodeaux, LA. In his spare time during the last few months, he appeared in an episode of NCIS: New Orleans and lifeguarded at the JCC. So if you’re planning a pool party and you need a lifeguard, he’s your guy!

Brok Kretzmann – Junior Internet Marketing Associate

Brok is from Minnesota. He loves extreme outdoor adventures—anything from an 85-mile bike ride to spelunking or free climbing. Brok is also a certified scuba diver. Music and technology, as a whole, are what he lives for. He jokes that you won’t ever find him without music of some kind.

Kate Mason – Junior Internet Marketing Associate

Kate is from Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated from USC in 2011 with degrees in Journalism and Anthropology. After traveling to Thailand and Cambodia this summer for two months, Kate moved to New Orleans for her next adventure. Kate’s secret talent is knowing every word to every song almost ever.

Paulina Rodriguez – Junior Web Developer

Paulina is originally from Los Angeles, California. She studied applied mathematics at UC Santa Cruz and Claremont Graduate University. Paulina is excited to be part of the development team. She enjoys watching extremely gory movies and can’t wait to try all the amazing food New Orleans has to offer!

Lauren Siegel – Product Management Intern

Lauren is a 2nd year Tulane MBA student concentrating in Marketing & Strategic Management and a New Orleans native. When she’s not getting down to business, Lauren enjoys any activity that relates to fashion, fitness, or food. Lauren also has a major Instagram problem, which mostly revolves around her 85-pound furry son named Pongo.

Join us in welcoming Ryan, Brok, Kate, Paulina, and Lauren! We’re excited (and very thankful!) to have you.

November 20, 2014
Five For Friday: Backlinks Back, Alright! The Missing Linkjuice & More

1. Blogs on Blogs
– Moz

Recently, Isla McKetta wrote an entry on The Moz Blog entitled “When Is a Blog the Right Form of Content Marketing?” Blogs have been championed as sure shots for improving online traffic and increasing a company’s influence. McKetta, however, argues that blogs are often overrated, and whether or not a business needs a blog depends on the type of business it is. The article provides concrete examples of when blogs are superfluous and marketing efforts would be better spent on other areas. It’s definitely worth reading.

2. Link Trouble
– Search Engine Land

Julie Joyce wrote a piece on why a website might not be as “linkworthy” as it could be. It’s common knowledge within the SEO realm that having other websites link to yours is vital. There are many steps that can be taken to optimize your site’s linking potential. While some of Joyce’s examples are somewhat obvious, such as including social sharing buttons, there are some important points that could be overlooked. For example, if your site has “atrocious writing,” it’s very unlikely that anyone will link to it.

3. Backlinks Matter
– Search Engine Watch

Adam Stetzer posted an article concerning why backlinks matter for small businesses. Stetzer argues that while small companies can’t afford to overlook backlinks when trying to rank higher on Google, they can’t take an easy way out either. According to Stetzer, low-cost deals offering “500 backlinks for $79” are actually dangerous for businesses because Penguin will view those links as spam and therefore suppress the business’ ranking. The article also discusses the relatively new concern of “Negative SEO” and how to avoid it.

4. How to Verify Apple Maps Listings Faster
– Mike Blumenthal

It has happened to just about everyone working in Internet marketing – while trying to verify a listing on Google or Apple Maps you’re forced to spend extraneous amounts of time retrieving a verification code over the phone and enter it in online. It seems as if these directories are trying their hardest to prevent you from taking control of the listing. Arbitrary factors, such as using a specific phone number too many times, can delay this process from anywhere between 5 minutes to an hour. Luckily, Justin Moseback of blumenthals.com has a trick to curb your time (and anger) spent on getting this task done.

5. Stuff: Where Should You Put it?
– Matt Cutts

When working within SEO, copious amounts of data are used every day. Therefore, it’s important to know where and how to store it most effectively. Matt Cutts has posted an in-depth article that explores the pros and cons of various data ecosystems. Ultimately, it seems, the best option is the one that molds the best to your business’ needs. However, there are some very convincing arguments for a few of them!

Image Sources:
Thanks to Dricker94 for the #5 pool ball image, and to Ministerio TIC Colombia for the typing image.

November 14, 2014
Help! I’m A Cyborg And Nobody “Likes” Me

Technology is redefining human connections, which has made social media a crucial ingredient in any marketing strategy. With many different outlets available used to communicate with your audience, how do you choose the best approach for your business? When sitting behind a computer screen, it is easy to forget the purpose of B2C marketing – building and maintaining meaningful relationships with your customers.

Here are some quick tips to create that connection through your social media campaign.

Be Receptive

Always be conscious of how your product and service will benefit the customer. Keep these benefits in mind when encouraging your customers to engage in your promotion and be receptive to their feedback. The beauty of social media is that it allows you to create a more personal approach to marketing those benefits, receiving feedback from the consumer and personally responding to his or her thoughts or concerns within minutes, demonstrating your excellence in customer service.

Be Genuine

It is critical that the voice and verbiage used for your campaign is coming from an authentic place. Eliminate the robotic, scripted tone and your audience will feel like they are not conversing with a business, but with a person who actually cares about their needs.

Be Direct

In this fast-paced society, your audience is most likely pressed for time and multitasking. Give them stimulating content in a short, digestible format that they will consider worth their time. Your mindfulness and appreciation for their time can go a long way.

Keeping your campaign personal, and showing your gratitude to your customers in a genuine way can be the key to a successful social media campaign. As long as your customer service is consistent with your social media efforts, your business can build and maintain those essential relationships.

Image Sources:

Thanks to Buzzfeed for the Mean Girls gif and for the Facebook “People First” image.

Other Source:

LinkedIn’s Social Media & Emotional Brand Attachment Case Study

November 11, 2014
Five For Friday: A Very Twitter Christmas, Facebook Gets Scroogy With Likes, & More!
1. Are Twitter Users the Most Efficient Holiday Shoppers? – MarketingLand

Given their 160-character count limit, Twitter users are clearly efficient communicators. And now, we are learning that they are super efficient holiday shoppers as well. The popular social platform released a study highlighting its ability to influence shoppers in their decisions on retail establishments and which specific items to purchase. 54% of users are more likely to purchase an item if they saw it advertised on Twitter. The study also shows that Twitter users not only shop earlier, but they also shop more frequently for holiday purchases. I guess now we know where retail shops should be marketing during the holidays.

2. Secrets to Properly Linking on LinkedIn – Business2Community

We all have a LinkedIn page. We’ve entered in our resume details, uploaded a picture, maybe got endorsed by a friend or two, and received a glowing recommendation from our moms, but now what? How exactly can you benefit from this?

Here are 12 secrets from LinkedIn pros! Adopting some of these habits will help you increase your presence and improve your network. Some tips include:
- Message people in groups for free!
- Share useful and relevant news (mainly for attention).
- Use tools, like FiveHundredPlus, to stay organized.
- Follow first; Like, Share, and Comment second.
LinkedIn can be confusing, and it may seem unnecessary, but with the growing number of companies and business people joining and actively using the platform, it has become more beneficial to understand how it works. Creating a substantial network will help in the long run. So, go forth and connect!

3. How-To: The Most Perfect List Post – Business2Community

Everyone loves lists! However, with their increasing popularity and Internet users’ ever-prevalent short attention spans, how do you keep readers reading?

Business2Community offers a near-perfect list of tips for creating the best and most effective list post. There are several things to consider when writing out a list, and remember, every detail matters. Some of the tips provided are:
- Always, always, always have an introduction and a conclusion (excluding the distinguished SI Five for Friday posts).
- Pick the right number (10 instead of 5, 7 instead of 8). Trust us, it’s science.
- In the title, use “10” instead of “ten.” Seriously, it matters.
- Write longer posts.
These tips are guaranteed to help make your list go viral, or at least make sure your readers actually read through to the end.

4. The End of Facebook Like-Gate as We Know It – MarketingLand

Say goodbye to the days of entering a contest on Facebook with the simple click of a Like button. Facebook engineers have dismantled the ability for companies to use Likes as the entrance fee for contests and prize drawings.

The effects of this are two-fold. For one, companies will now have to engage users on a deeper level in order for them to connect with the business. This change effectively ends the use of “artificial incentives.” Two, they also expect to see more conclusive results when determining demographics, as opposed to the scattered results received when companies were giving away iPads haphazardly to gain social media presence.

However, it is also being argued that ending Like-gating is solely meant to gain revenue for Facebook. The belief is that companies will pay for Likes if they have to. And now, they have to.

5. What’s the About Page Supposed to Be About? – CopyBlogger

The About page seems pretty self-explanatory, but it has actually evolved over the years and is no longer a place for you to just describe your business/products. For a more effective page, use it to start a conversation with your reader and emphasize to potential clients that you have what they are looking for. Because this is often the most visited page on your site, it is wise to grab the reader’s attention from the get-go. Let your personality shine! This will assure your visitors that they are in the right place, and they are more likely to continue browsing your site.

There are 5 steps to creating a superior About page:
1. Engage with readers by introducing your personality and humor on the site. Don’t be afraid to be different.
2. Get into the readers’ heads. Make them think you’re reading their mind by showing them you have exactly what they are looking for.
3. Brag, but humbly. Include some testimonials so others are singing your praises.
4. Near the end, insert a bit of your biography. Make sure you express why you do what you do, and why you love it.
5. Call to action! Invite your readers to sign up for your email list, call, or contact you. Most of the time, they will!
Image Sources:

Thanks to Mariah Summers for the “You Are Perfect” gif.
November 7, 2014
I Wanna Index You Up: Google Exposed
Google is a great keeper of secrets. They’re willing to share parts of demographic data captured from their users with potential advertisers. But, they keep their own personal data locked up pretty tight, or at least tight enough to keep anyone without a neurosis for data away.

About a month ago, I was trying to get an idea of URLs that existed on a client’s website. Due to their unfortunately dated decision to integrate a Flash-based navigation on their front page, I could not use a sitemap generator — software that crawls a site and outputs all URLs — to gather up a URL list.

Because I’m pretty lazy, or some could argue resourceful, I decided to look into what Google indexed for that site. However, you can’t exactly text Google up to request the URLs be sent over.

It’s Up To You, My Dude

Although Google Webmaster Tools provides you with a lot of info about your site, including how many URLs are indexed, it does not tell you which URLs are indexed. So I did a little bit of digging, and I found this “bookmarklet” that easily captures the SERPs that appear on a given page of results, and lists them in an easy-to-import-into-Excel format.

To see a list of URLs (or at least a partial list) Google has indexed for a specific domain name, query Google for “site:sitename.com.”

Here’s a reenactment of what I saw when searching for the indexed URLs:

Once you have that bookmarklet added to your bookmarks bar (just drag and drop, as the instructions say), clicking it gives results like this in a new tab:

By visually filtering out the worthless stuff (JavaScript, a link to Youtube, and blank rows), I’m left with this tidy list of first page of results. Sadly, we find that there are only 9 pages indexed of shrimp.com, inclusive of its subdomains, within Google:
- http://wholesale.shrimp.com/
- http://shrimp.com/recipes/
- http://wholesale.shrimp.com/wholesale-order-form/
- http://shrimp.com/shrimp-school/
- http://shrimp.com/?f
- http://shrimp.com/about-us/
- http://www.shrimp.com/index1.html
- http://shrimp.com/garlic-skewed-shrimp/
For the purpose of finding the indexed URLs for my client, I just kept clicking “Next Page” and running this until I couldn’t get any more results.

And with that, I had a pretty good idea of URLs that were actually indexed by Google. Luckily, this was a reasonable amount of pages to parse through, but I could imagine this being particularly tedious process for larger sites.

Although you may want to take the results of these queries with a grain of salt, given the presence of Google’s filter bubble, its accessibility to non-technical users make it a helpful tool.

In my experience at Search Influence, we’ve had a few clients with indexing issues related to pages that are actually discoverable by search. We knew how many URLs were indexed, as well as how many we expected to be indexed, but we did not know which URLs were not part of their index. By cross-referencing a sitemap with all discoverable URLs versus the results of this manual URL scraping of Google’s index, we can have a clue into what the heck’s wrong, and start troubleshooting with more focus.
November 6, 2014
The Only Thing Scarier Than Bad SEO is Search Influence Halloween

Search Influence recently moved to a much larger building with more space for our growing staff. The only catch is in this much larger building our office is located on the 13th floor. Working (celebrating) our first Halloween on the 13th floor was not scary as you may think.

Our office is a mixture of fun people, eccentric styles, and unique cultures. The one aspect we all have in common is enjoying what we do and where we work. Even though we experience fun in the office on a daily basis, holidays like Halloween bring out the festive spirit from within us.

Nearly one fourth of the office staff came dressed up as various characters, animals, and other Halloween favorites.

The outfits ranged from imitations of other co workers,

to a favorite TV character (Sue from SNL),

to classic storybook characters (Hansel and The Mad Steampunk Hatter).

No Halloween would be complete without the treats! Many Influencers brought their favorite treat to share with the entire office.

The treats ranged from traditional candies,

to sugary delights

classic yet healthy options (Ants on a Log),

and savory snacks.

To top it all off we even had some rad decorations.

Our first Halloween on the 13th floor was a success and enjoyed by all! We are lucky to work for a company that encourages us to be uniquely ourselves.

November 5, 2014