Archive for the ‘SEO Training’ Category

Go beyond keywords and craft a winning SEO strategy with this training – The Next Web

TLDR: The 10-course Pro Google SEO and SERP Certification Bundle explores all the tools and tactics for landing at the top of Google search results and at a cost under $30.

A commitment to landing atop Google search rankings is like trying to bullseye a moving target. And lets be honest lining up just the right keywords while leveraging just the right set of Google algorithm variables to land ahead of everyone else on SERP (search engine results pages) can be almost equal parts luck and magic versus study and game-planning.

However, TNW has been telling you this forever: the lack of a sound SEO strategy all but guarantees the luck and magic parts wont happen.

You can give yourself a shot to win the SEO game with the training found in The Pro Google SEO and SERP Certification Bundle, now discounted hundreds of dollars down to just $29 from TNW Deals. Get an extra 15% off with promo code MERRYSAVE15 at checkout.

Across 10 courses, this collection explores the variables that dictate Google success and translates those rules for use in your campaigns.

These courses go way beyond simple keyword maintenance, offering vital guidance in tactics like effective linking, Google Ad usage, and even leveraging the power of Amazon selling to improve your visibility. Youll also get a full explainer on exactly which tools the true SEO pro needs to expand your reach and connect via search.

Each course here retails for $200, but by grabbing this all-inclusive package of training now, the entire collection works out to less than $3 per course while this offer lasts.

Prices are subject to change.

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Go beyond keywords and craft a winning SEO strategy with this training - The Next Web

How many people should be on your SEO team? The factors to consider – Search Engine Land

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.

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

2020 Marketing Trends – What to Focus On, and What to Avoid – Inc.

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.

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2020 Marketing Trends - What to Focus On, and What to Avoid - Inc.

Certified Digital Marketer: Championing digital transformation in the Philippines and beyond – INQUIRER.net

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.

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

Pantone Color of the Year is Classic Blue, hoping for calm this year – The American Genius

Heading into 2020 with what is assured to be a contentious election, with forests in the Amazon being decimated, with global warming melting polar regions faster than a butane torch and political violence escalating in just about every part of the world, Pantone has decided to harken back to a more calm, confident and connected time with its own Blue period.

Pantone announced the color of the year for 2020 and its Classic Blue (PANTONE 19-4052). The Pantone Color Institute selects its Color of the Year, forecasting global color trends and suggesting what it will be the it color for the coming year, according to the companys website.

The Classic Blue may remind you of the color of Facebook, the Democrat Party, and a pair of Levis; the organization said it is attempting to harken back to a feeling of comfort and protection, even as technology races ahead and we humans are left to play catch up and attempt to process in its aftermath.

In a press release, Pantone described the denim-like tone as solid and dependable, and non-aggressive and easily relatable.

Imprinted in our psyches as a restful color, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue brings a sense of peace and tranquility to the human spirit, offering refuge, according to the website.

We are living in a time that requires trust and faith. It is this kind of constancy and confidence that is expressed by PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue, a solid and dependable blue hue we can always rely on, said Leatrice Eisman, Executive Director of The Pantone Color Institute.

The color is said to be an anchoring foundation, evocative of the vast evening sky and to increase our perspective and open the flow of communication.

For more than 20 years Pantone has been choosing a color of the year and it consults a whole host of experts who seek out color influences and trends from the world of music, fashion, movies, media, etc.

In his article on Web Designer Depot, Ben Moss said of the choice, Classic Blue is a color that harks back to a time when we hid our head in the sand and pretended everything was fine. Its the color of the pre-2008 crash, the color of Facebook pre-privacy scandal, the brand color of your parents bank. Classic Blue is about as 2020 as Helvetica.

As an alternative to the Pantone choice, Moss said a more forward thinking color for the time would be cyberpunk pink.

This is not the first time Pantone has been taken to task for its color choice. At a time when the Great Barrier Reef is dying because of the impact of global warming, The Pantone color for 2019 was Living Coral. That choice was seen as tone-deaf from some of those in the design industry.

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Pantone Color of the Year is Classic Blue, hoping for calm this year - The American Genius