Mediaboss Marketing

This is the second installment of our series on in-house SEO in which we dig into the operational challenges and opportunities that managing search engine optimization in-house presents.

As a consultant who specializes in in-house SEO, Im often asked how large the SEO team should be. Most people think it has to do with revenue numbers. While that comes into the equation, its not a leading indicator of what size SEO team a company needs.

Lets explore some of the factors I consider when making recommendations for SEO team size. Theyre typically surprising to most SEO teams! The reason is I look at the operations, not just the revenue. Revenue can help justify (or limit) the team size, but its not an indicator of the SEO hours needed in a week.

If your site is simple, you typically need a smaller SEO team. The reason is that your SEOs are likely chasing fewer fires.

More complex websites have a higher risk of introducing SEO problems with even small changes. Most SEO teams spend a good chunk of their week chasing projects, putting out fires, and trying to minimize SEO problems rather than increasing SEO revenue.

All this means, if youre doing SEO for a site without a lot of complex functionality, its one factor that would make me consider a smaller SEO team.

Hands down, this is one of the leading factors for determining SEO team size at a larger corporation. Some companies I have worked with have 150+ developers working on the search engine-facing aspects of the site. In these situations, you need more than one technical SEO person to guide each of these releases to ensure they will be SEO friendly.

Product managers are one of the most influential roles on a website, and they are constantly spinning up projects. SEO teams need to be tied at the hip of product managers and have an intimate understanding of what product managers are proposing to change on the site.

If you have one or only a handful of product managers, you need fewer SEO hours allocated to work with them. But, if you have 12 product managers, then interaction with product managers will take a lot of SEO time.

Merchandisers in each company take on different roles, and at many companies, they have the authority to create new pages, write new content, and change links within the site and navigation.

If you have a couple of merchandisers its easier to stay on top of what theyre doing, but if you have 8 merchandisers its going to take a lot more SEO resources to guide them on keywords for their new pages, the type of content needed to rank, and ensuring theyre not making changes to existing pages that will hurt SEO.

The number of UX designers focusing on search engine facing pages greatly influences the number of new page designs that are being cranked through the development machine. I typically find the more designers, the more SEO requirements youll need to define for development.

Once writers understand how to optimize content for SEO (and have bought into it, or incentivized to do it) they can really start impacting the website from a content perspective.

Unfortunately, most companies dont have a lot of writers for the website, and creating this content falls on the shoulders of roles that are not experienced writers. For these non-professional writers, its often more of a challenge for them to account for all the business needs, conversion needs and SEO needs in content and still make it sound elegant and on-brand. This means the SEO team will spend more time reviewing content, and the SEO team may have to write all the title tags and meta descriptions.

Some companies are so metrics heavy that SEO teams can easily have one person dedicated to cranking out reports and estimates for revenue lift/drop based on proposed changes.

For perspective, I spent a week with a client on-site and watched her spend an unexpected three solid days preparing metrics for a company quarterly business review and two days analyzing a proposed A/B test that, if launched, would shrink the site navigation by 30%. This doesnt even account for regular reporting that executives and other teams wanted to see. At this company, there are a lot of SEO hours spent on analysis and reporting.

Another client knew their product managers need a significant amount of SEO data broken down by category of their e-commerce site as regular monthly SEO reporting. They realized it would take two to four SEO data analysts to support the reporting requests. Of course, they were making almost a billion dollars in SEO revenue a year so they could justify the expense of such a team.

The last factor I wanted to talk about is where each role is in terms of SEO knowledge. Do they know a lot or practically nothing?

Ive seen many non-SEO teams with enthusiasm to work on SEO (Factor #8), but they knew so little that their enthusiasm couldnt compensate for expertise enough to make SEO time investments efficient.

If your non-SEO teams dont have enough SEO knowledge (nor enough enthusiasm for SEO), the solution is effective SEO training and toolkits, because:

Now youre set to have a really good understanding of what size of SEO team you should have for your company. And more importantly, how to discuss growing the SEO team with executives.

See original here:
How many people should be on your SEO team? The factors to consider - Search Engine Land

As we gear up for the year to close, it's important to evaluate your business strategies and how new trends will affect your business. In marketing specifically, where the landscape continues to grow, it's important to understand which marketing trends are killing your conversions instead of driving them. Here are three marketing tools companies should avoid in 2020, and what to do instead.

Pop-up ads are irritating and they are dwindling in conversion rates. Pop-up ads slow down website performance (which hugely affects your SEO rating), and they irritate your customers to the point of driving them off your site-- the opposite of what you want. Instead of a popup that interrupts your customer's engagement, try a sticky header or footer (sometimes called a pull-up or pull-down). A sticky header or footer is a bar located at the head or foot of the site that invites an opt-in. As the consumer scrolls, the sticky header or footer moves with them at either the top of the bottom of the page. This presents the opportunity to opt-in, but doesn't slow down your page or frustrate a potential lead--a win-win.

Simple or stock imagery on your website and marketing materials is another thing to leave behind as it brings no human connection to your brand. Consumers want to feel connected to a brand as automation increasingly takes over personalization. Anthony Kane, the Senior SEO strategist at 1SEO Digital Agency, adds, "Users have become very keen to spotting and ignoring stock imagery. Stock photos simply don't resonate with users as a personalized image or video does."

Instead of static or stock imagery on websites or promotional advances, try your hand at a customized video or interactive content. There are many free resources that walk you through the basics of video creation and editings, such as Lumen5, promo.com, and more.

Content for Content's Sake

Content is king when it comes to marketing. However, too many companies push out mass quantities of content to try to drive traffic. That is the problem. These companies are pushing out too much content, and the quality of that content suffers because of it. Engaging content is the best strategy for brand awareness. Engaging content means quality over quantity. Engaging, connecting, and well-thought-out content will resonate more with your readers (and present higher value to search engines) than limp content covering a topic that websites with much higher authority cover deeply. Stick to what you know best, and produce well-developed content with actionable items. Quality over quantity.

As 2020 approaches, repositioning your marketing strategies should be top on your list. Be sure to understand the top marketing trends to expect in 2020 as being blind to these can seriously impact your business.

Marketing acts as your brand's first impression because it introduces your business to the world. A Harvard study revealed that it typically takes eight subsequent positive encounters to change another person's negative opinion of you. Keep that in mind as you prioritize updating your marketing strategies in the new year.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

Read the original post:
2020 Marketing Trends - What to Focus On, and What to Avoid - Inc.

MANILA, Philippines Certified Digital Marketer (CDM), the pioneer in digital marketing education and transformation in the Philippines, has reached a new high educating almost 8,000 students this 2019. Known for being the only industry certifications in Digital Transformation, Digital Marketing, Social Media, E-Commerce, Digital Media, Marketing Analytics, among others, CDM continues to champion digital learning as program pilots have reached Cebu and Jakarta, Indonesia.

CDMs main goal is to help educate and transform professionals and businesses in a highly connected, digital environment, says Katz Lobregat-Enriquez, Managing Partner and Chief Marketing Officer of E-Learning Edge, Inc., the company behind CDM. Our knowledge andcapability to support professionals and organizations through upskilling and coaching can benefit not just the Philippines but our Asian neighbors.

This 2019, we wanted to test that inJakarta and we did it, adds Katz. Expanding reach CDM launched Certified Digital Professional (CDP) that aims in educating professionals from varying companies and industries focused on accelerating digital knowledge and skills in Indonesia. A two-day workshop on Marketing in a Digital World, was successfully launched and attended by more than 30 professionals in the digital and advertising industry. The two-day session discussed the basics of digital marketing in Indonesia and how to maximize the up and coming trends that are propagating throughout the different industries. Both days were headlined by Wizard Manilas Jason Cruz.

Aside from its expansion outside the Philippines, CDM has also launched its first livecast! By leveraging on the power of technology to reach more professionals based in Cebu. One of its highly rated programs Social Media Program was broadcasted exclusively to Cebu students.Havas Media Ortegas Shayne Garcia-Madamba and AIA Philam Lifes Miko de Vera served as the experts for the broadcasted two-day event.2019 was also a year of fostering more partnerships with industry leaders. The company teamed up with Lazada and Online Micro Sellers Marketing Cooperative in launching the Lazada University x CDMs Facebook Marketing Masterclass. The masterclass consisted of four hour-long webinar sessions from late September to mid-October. The Facebook Marketing Masterclass is a part of the partnership between Lazada and CDM that aims to provide multidisciplinary learning programs exclusive for Lazadas sellers.

CDM continues its consultations with industry experts to ensure that CDM Certifications and Programs are up-to-date and are at par with professional standards, assuring global and multinational companies of its certified graduates digital skills. It is the official learning partner of the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) and has served as one of the major sponsors of IMMAPs Web Wednesdays a free monthly webinar series that is designed to support digital education in the Philippines.

Whats Next for CDM?

CDM has launched its 2020 Digital Training schedule and is now available at http://www.cdm.ph. Expect new program offerings like Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Agile and Design Thinking, among others. We are excited to roll out in Indonesia and create more strategic partnerships. These are initiatives we are looking forward to in 2020, concludes Katz.

ADVT

Read Next

LATEST STORIES

MOST READ

Subscribe to INQUIRER PLUS to get access to The Philippine Daily Inquirer & other 70+ titles, share up to 5 gadgets, listen to the news, download as early as 4am & share articles on social media. Call 896 6000.

Original post:
Certified Digital Marketer: Championing digital transformation in the Philippines and beyond - INQUIRER.net

In September 2018, President Donald Trump won an important First Amendment victory. By a 3-0 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled that neither Trump nor his campaign could be held liable for injuries suffered by protesters at the hands of Trump supporters during a March 2016 rally even though the then-candidate had yelled to get em out of here.

The courts reasoning was based on the straightforward application of free-speech principles: Trump had not advocated violence at the Kentucky rally (in fact, he had also said dont hurt em), and therefore he couldnt be successfully sued even though some people were roughed up.

The decision may have been a disappointment for those who thought Trump should be held accountable for his careless words. But under the First Amendment, political speech receives the highest level of protection except in the most extreme circumstances.

Now, though, those principles are in danger. Based on a similar set of facts, the 5th Circuit ruled recently that a police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, can sue Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson for injuries he received at the hands of a rock-throwing protester even though, as The Washington Post reported, Mckesson did not throw the rock or tell anyone else to throw it.

Mckesson had organized the 2016 demonstration following the police killing of a black man named Alton Sterling. The police officer, whose identity has not been revealed, claims that Mckesson acted negligently by not foreseeing that the demonstration could become violent.

The goal of lawsuits like these is to prevent people from showing up at a protest out of the fear that they might be held responsible if anything happens, Mckesson said in a statement released by the ACLU, which earlier this month asked the Supreme Court to take up the case. If this precedent lasts, it could make organizers all across the country responsible for all types of things they have no control over, such as random people coming into a protest and causing problems. We cant let that happen.

The Supreme Court precedent that protected Trump and that, by all rights, should protect Mckesson is NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., a case decided in 1982. The NAACP in 1966 called for a boycott of white-owned businesses in Claiborne County, Mississippi a nonviolent form of protest that nevertheless led to some acts of violence. In 1969, several of the business owners sued the NAACP and were successful in the state courts. But the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the NAACP could not be held liable for engaging in nonviolent free-speech activities regardless of actions taken by people not under the organizations control.

Although the cases against Trump and Mckesson, like the case against NAACP, were for alleged civil offenses, its also worth noting the high bar the Supreme Court has set for incitement to violence in criminal cases. In the landmark 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, the court threw out the conviction of Ku Klux Klan leader Clarence Brandenburg because the threats he made at a rally against African Americans and Jews were non-specific and would not result in imminent violence.

In their petition to the Supreme Court, the ACLUs lawyers argue that allowing the lawsuit against Mckesson to proceed would have a chilling effect on anyone who might wish to organize a nonviolent protest.

Given the regularity with which violence and First Amendment activity co-occur and the vagaries of state law liability rules, the lawyers wrote, only the most intrepid citizens would exercise their rights and risk ruinous liability if they could be held liable for the wrongful acts of others.

Ben Wizner, director of the ACLUs Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, put it this way in the Washington Post story: If this is allowed to stand, anybody can show up and throw a rock at a protest to bankrupt a movement they disagree with. People know when they step into the street that they might have to spend some hours in jail or pay a fine. But if they might have to pay a multi-million dollar civil judgment thats something theyre not prepared for, and cant possibly be expected to prepare for.

The case should prove to be a telling indicator of where the Supreme Court stands on free speech now that it has swung sharply to the right. Only four of the nine justices are needed take up the case.

Traditionally, even the courts more conservative members have proved to be staunch advocates of the First Amendment. But if Trumps justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, were to break with that tradition, the case of DeRay Mckesson v. John Doe could prove to be a signal moment in our march to a less open, less free society.

WGBH News contributor Dan Kennedys blog, Media Nation, is online at dankennedy.net.

Read the rest here:
Why A Lawsuit Against A Black Lives Matter Activist Could Deal A Staggering Blow To The First Amendment - wgbh.org

Before entering 2020, Detroit Todays Stephen Henderson closesout this year and the decade by taking a look back to reflect on some of the biggest news stories, cultural moments and the people who leftus.

The panel includesCrains Detroit Business Senior Editor Chad Livengood, journalist and editor Nancy Derringer and political and communications consultant Greg Bowens.

Derringer says Donald Trump is the person of the decade, meanwhile Bowens says its the creator of the Bird Scooter TravisVanderZanden.

Livengood says his general overarching rule is that this has been the decade ofdisruption.

He says the last ten years have been about disruptors, both in business and in politics and culture,pointingto the self-implosion of K-Mart, the rise of Trump and services like DoorDash, Lyft andUber.

Henderson also mentions the passing of several notable figures including: Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin, John Conyers, John Dingell, Robin Williams, Nelson Mandela, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Prince, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Gordie Howe, Muhammad Ali, Cokie Roberts, Maya Angelou, Damon Keith, Mike Ilitch, David DiChiera, Whitney Houston, L Brooks Patterson, Anthony Bourdain, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Tom Petty, Chuck Berry and Bill Milliken.

Go here to see the original:
The Decade of Disruption: Me Too, Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump and More - WDET