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Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association

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Home Archives for Google

Local Love: Getting to 3rd Base with Mike Blumenthal

October 19, 2015 By DFWSEM

SERP climbing for fun and profit

Local search guru Mike Blumenthal uses humor and true stories to share recent observations in Google rankings for local businesses

Local search guru Mike Blumenthal uses humor and true stories to share recent observations in Google rankings for local businesses

 

Final DFWSEM meeting of 2015 ends on a high note

This was the last DFWSEM meeting of the year before State of Search, and someone clearly decided to end on a high note. Mike Blumenthal brought out the pre-Halloween tricks and treats that take local SEO from mediocre to magical.

Who’s Mike Blumenthal?

Professor Maps. Local search wizard. The guy who has folks from Google dropping by his office. You know he founded Local U, right? Mike is the guy people mean when they say, “I know a guy.”
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Blog, DFWSEM Tagged With: DFWSEM, Google, local search, local SEO, Mike Blumenthal, seo, SERPs, State of Search

Future Tense, Present Perfect: Predictions and Trends with Brett Tabke and Joe Laratro

August 14, 2015 By DFWSEM

What’s coming next and what’s happening now

Joe Laratro - Forget Future Shock – SEO and Social Virtual Reality

Joe Laratro predicts the future of SEO being bright; you may have to wear shades.

Beating the heat

This month’s meeting of DFWSEM was cooler than being cool. It was ice cold. The air conditioning and the data were both icy — as was the beer, courtesy of event sponsor Advice Interactive Group, which was on hand with goodies and good local search info.

President Scott Vann started the ball rolling, then handed the mic off to past president Rob Garner to discuss The Vine Foundation, a charity that provides both necessities and ongoing life skills education to those in need. Of particular interest to those of us who are lucky enough to understand technology, The Vine Foundation teaches computer skill classes and is always looking for volunteers or donated laptops.

In other coolness, State of Search continues to rack up the points. The number of available tickets continues to dwindle rapidly. Speaker pitches have been completed and invitations have been sent out. eFrogs are charging up to take attendees all over Deep Ellum. But now there’s even more news.

Title sponser? Bing. Yeah. It’s like that.
Conference Hotel? Hotel Indigo. Stylishness for your face.
Final keynote speaker? Basecamp brand and marketing hotshot Mig Reyes!

Clearly, the only people who are going to miss State of Search are people who are going to wish they hadn’t missed State of Search. Register before September 1st and save $100 on tickets. But don’t delay – once they’re gone at this price, they won’t be coming back.

Gazing into the future

Brett Tabke

Brett Tabke observes how web page UI continues to evolve thanks to mobile growth.

SEO stalwart and Pubcon founder Brett Tabke took the stage next, extrapolating from current trends he’s noticed to spin a few predictions.

Starting with design, he pointed out that mobile has made a huge difference. Visuals are cleaner, with no drop shadows or rounded corners. They’re bigger, too, and higher resolution to be visible across different sorts of screens. Add transparent buttons and parallax scrolling and you have a more immersive environment for users on any given device. As a result, design that doesn’t take touch into account or that relies on agent sniffing has fallen out of favor, along with CSS mouse-over menus and 3D buttons that might clutter the view.

In light of these trends, Brett speculates we might be seeing more sites that are 100% graphics – just pure images with a bit of mapping for links. And given the big change from Google to Alphabet, we’re likely to see a multi screen-centric view gain popularity, considering the new Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, is an Android guy.

But things really got cool on the subject of virtual reality (VR). The first version of the much-discussed Oculus Rift will be out in January. Going out on a limb, Brett claimed this will be a literally world-changing development. He also pointed out that Facebook stands to be the big winner in the VR space as owners of the Oculus VR company with a built-in user base. Successful VR and verified identities are a great recipe for the creation of entirely virtual worlds, and Facebook is positioned to be front and center.

Attendees network after the meeting over cold beer and warm pizza.

Attendees network after the meeting over cold beer and warm pizza.

What’s happening now

Tandem Interactive CEO and Pubcon speaker liaison Joe Laratro took the podium next to talk about current trends. Starting with the departure of Google’s Matt Cutts and how that impacted Mobilegeddon, he pointed out that we’re already in a different era.

But that isn’t all bad. Thanks to an improving economy, more companies are spending on SEO again, and doing so here in the US. In order to keep the momentum going, clean and classic SEO tactics are still the order of the day. Regular content additions are a must, but they must be useful and high quality. Link building hasn’t gone away, but it should be managed with care and audited quarterly. And in order to rank well on local search, “Barnacle SEO” is crucial. If Yelp ranks as the first search engine result for your type of business in your area, well, you’d better be sure your Yelp page is flawless. Don’t forget UX, either. If customers can’t easily use your site on any device, they’ll go somewhere else.

Following the presentation guests pick Joe Laratro's brain.

Following the presentation guests pick Joe Laratro’s brain.

Of course, right around the corner is the much-discussed Internet of Things. Imagine a self-driving car; how cool would a Vegas taxi be with location-triggered ads that match possible destinations as tourists glide down the Strip? It’s important that marketers keep an eye out for new opportunities as more and more things are networked.

Finally, one lucky winner had their business card drawn out of the fishbowl, winning a ticket to October’s Pubcon Las Vegas. Laurie Shook, President of SMC Dallas, took the prize.

On September 9, DFWSEM will host Brad Geddes. Brad has spoken everywhere from Romania to Spain, to Silicon Valley, and all points in-between. He specializes in demystifying the more inscrutable aspects of SEO and PPC. It sounds like a pretty cool event and would be a shame for you to miss it.

"SEO isn't SEO anymore. Let's call it what it is. It's content marketing." Bold words from @btabke #DFWSEM.

— Kelcey Piper (@kelceypiper) August 13, 2015

Marketing is no longer spray and pray. It’s all about metrics and intention. #dfwsem

— John J Nosal (@jnosal) August 13, 2015

"The Internet of things… this is WILD." – @jlaratro #DFWSEM

— Timothy Huneycutt (@Timotheous128) August 13, 2015

Slidedeck – Brett Tabke

Slidedeck – Joe Laratro

Periscope Video – Brett Tabke

Periscope Video – Joe Laratro

Filed Under: Blog, DFWSEM, Meetings Tagged With: Brett Tabke, design, DFWSEM, Digital Marketing, Google, Interactive Marketing, Joe Laratro, marketing, Online Marketing

Arnie Kuenn on How to Get the Clicks You Want With Optimized Content

June 15, 2015 By DFWSEM

Keep your tags tidy and your content fresh

Arnie Kuenn speaks to a full house at DFWSEM

Arnie Kuenn: Marketing Terminator. “Come with me if you want to optimize.”

On June 10th, DFWSEM hosted Vertical Measure’s Arnie Kuenn.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but it was awesome.

DFWSEM sponsor Advice Interactive Group was on hand to hand out 10 free admissions to Rocks Digital. Beth Kahlich shouted out new and renewing members. Scott Vann announced ticket sales were taking off for State of Search. Then Arnie came on and blew everyone away.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Arnie Kuenn, content, content optimization, DFWSEM, Google, marketing, optimization, seo, Social Media Dallas

Update: Gmail Grid View Puts Pinterest in the Inbox

April 22, 2015 By DFWSEM

Is your email marketing ready?

Screenshot of Gmail grid view

Grid view puts the focus on images

No, your eyes do not deceive you. Gmail grid view is already gone.

Rumors began to swirl last week that grid view was being “deprecated,” the term Google uses for projects they no longer support. People began to tweet, asking if anyone else was having trouble finding the grid view option, and the toggle disappeared from various accounts over a period of days.

"Aww, rats, @gmail killed grid view!" – Said a bunch of email marketers, because they're the only ones who even knew it existed

— Email Snarketing (@EmailSnarketing) April 17, 2015

Gmail's Grid View seems to be gone. Look for yourself.

— Daniel Deneweth (@danielrpco) April 17, 2015

Gmail took away my grid view for the promotions tab and I'm inexplicably upset. #emailmarketing #techieprobs

— Karen Hopper (@lalaforte) April 17, 2015

Kinda bummed Gmail made Grid view disappear. I dug it.

— Tim Barribeau (@tbarribeau) April 17, 2015

Now, we have something akin to official confirmation. There was no announcement, but Justin at FreshInbox got a response that, “It was an experiment [Google] decided not to pursue.”

Obviously, marketers know that Google has a history of pulling the plug on projects with little advance warning, the three year long Great Authorship Debacle being a prime example. But unlike the intricate authorship markup, the response to grid view seemed very positive among marketers, though there is little research on consumer thought.

So the question is, well, why?

One possible explanation is that it wouldn’t fit with the ecosystem Google hopes to create with Inbox by Gmail, the still-mysterious email alternative that doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction. What do you think? Does Google have something more up its sleeve?

Updated April 23, 2015 at 3:00 pm

As of October 2013, 24.29% of Americans use Gmail during work hours — and that number has only gone up. Over a quarter of your potential clients, customers, and consumers are looking at your expensive email campaigns via Gmail. And Gmail is about to throw you a curve ball. It looks like Pinterest. It showcases images. And it requires you to think visually. Are you ready to get graphic?   [Read more…]

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: email marketing, Gmail, Google, graphics, images, tactics

Upcoming Events

2021 lineup

January 13, 2021
Measuring Email Delivery In The Time Of Gmail Dominance

February 10, 2021
Scott Simson – The One Day Business – Learn 3 Tactics to Growing Your Business Using YouTube

March 10, 2021
Eli Schwartz Brought to you by OnCrawl

April 14, 2021
TBD

May 12, 2021
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June 9, 2021
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July 14, 2021
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August 11, 2021
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September 8, 2021
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October 13, 2021
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November 1-2, 2021
State of Search

December 8, 2021
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