"Is your website search- and social-media-friendly?" inquires a recent post at the Online Marketing Blog. According to Lee Odden, search is the most efficient and effective way for consumers to discover content. However, focusing on standard SEO tactics, such as keyword usage and links, is not enough to remain competitive, ... more

As of June 13, Facebook has made it possible for users to secure a URL for both their profiles and any Facebook Pages they administer. Why this matters: Facebook is super-juicy SEO-wise. It's rich with content, oft-accessed, and constantly being updated. Securing a vanity URL with your name (for your ... more

We spend a lot of time discussing topics like deliverability and relevance, but rarely touch on another factor that plays a critical role in successful email marketing campaigns. "Process is such a basic thing that is so often ignored," says Kevin Senne in a post at the Email Experience blog. ... more

"Do you know what attracts your readers? What headlines they respond to most? Do they respond to pictures? Do they know what your offer is?" asks Peter Da Vanzo in a recent SEObook.com post. Testing will give you answers, but it can be tedious and costly. Da Vanzo offers the following ideas for quick-and-cheap, ... more

"Testing can be a powerful tool to move your email marketing program forward," says Kelly Lorenz in a post at the Bronto blog. "Testing can also help you move from 'It depends' to 'It works for us.'" But before you test, she says, you should ask a few questions like these: ... more

Chad White of the Retail Email blog was impressed when he recently received an email from Lands' End with this subject line: Free Shipping + 20-50% off summer! Swim, shorts, polos and more. "I really liked this checklist approach to listing departments," he explains. "It feels less like it's pressing ... more

Contextual ads, whether delivered by Google, Yahoo, or any other company, are not standalone ads in the way that a newspaper classified ad is. In fact, your pay-per-click ad is simply the connector between a desired keyword or phrase and a destination landing page. So while you may have some wonderful ... more

In a post at the DIRECT website, Ken Magill discusses the results of a survey conducted by MailerMailer. Among its more interesting findings: Subject lines containing up to 35 characters significantly outperform those with more than 35. "According to the email marketing software-on-demand provider," says Magill, "messages with subject lines ... more

Once in a while, a digital ad grabs you just like that. And one thing that really boosts its impact is if the person featured in it is—you. Read on:  Last year, to sell tickets to its women's basketball games, Gonzaga University released a video of a coach calling the ONE person whose attendance would ... more

"A subject line … invites others into your email marketing open house," says Josh Nason in an article at MarketingProfs. "If you have something to sell or a message you want to get across, that subject line better be good—or else your prospects might head to a different neighborhood." Nason ... more

You understand how email delivery works, but perhaps you have trouble explaining the process to your boss, a client or a colleague. If so, you're in luck. An entertaining post by Matt Vernhout at Email Karma compares the delivery process to an evening at a hot new nightclub—terms most everyone ... more

"The economic downturn spells bad news to most marketers," says Jack Trout in a post at the Branding blog, "but a slump also presents an opportunity to build brands." He takes a back-to-basics approach to his brand-building, and recommends a few down-home strategies that might help turn your lemons into ... more

"There are many similarities between social media marketing and email," says Ross Kramer in an article at MarketingProfs, "but they are two distinct marketing channels and they should be used separately to enhance or magnify, not just promote, each other." Kramer outlines a process for complementary strategies that play to the ... more

As summer approaches, and your subscribers begin to go on holidays, you might wonder whether you should scale back your email campaigns. But in a post at the Email Experience Council blog, Ryan Allis says, "Not only should you feel comfortable sending out your messages over the summer, it's also ... more

Yet another promising piece to add to your digital-strategy arsenal: how about interstitial :15-:30 video spots? This summer, ShortTail Media is launching a beta for its Digital 30 (D30) program—full-page interstitial ad placements in which 15- to 30-second spots can be incorporated. Interstitials are ads you see when you are ... more

In Part 1 of this article, the author talked a little bit about the necessary components to a successful landing page: You need "bones" to hold it all together; you need to keep the message on track and motivating by maintaining a consistent theme throughout; and you need to stir ... more

When you have customers scrambling to make ends meet, or cutting back on unnecessary expenditures, it might seem foolhardy to let them set prices for your product or service. But Sam Lippert of the Java Street Cafe in Kettering, Ohio, took a chance on that risky strategy. He told diners ... more

With the widespread use of technical lingo—words like segment, list, database—sometimes it's easy for email marketers to forget about the actual human being on the other side of the Send button. "[W]e're not just delivering to inboxes," Karen Talavera reminds us in a MarketingProfs article, "we're communicating [with] individuals." Here ... more

Sad fact: Even if you have an unlimited budget to spend on paid search, you may not always get the number of Google ad impressions you seek. Why? Because, no matter how much money you have, "you're not the only advertiser in the world, and Google is trying to show ... more

You've probably made a practice of asking customers to review your products, but are you using their praise to its full advantage? "Recently," says Kelly Lorenz at the Bronto blog, "I have seen an uptick in retailers utilizing customer reviews to sell products in their emails." Why? Because user-generated reviews ... more

Last month, talk of Volvo invaded the blogosphere when the company embedded live Tweets into a YouTube banner ad for its XC60 model. The feed kept viewers abreast of live coverage of the NY Auto Show, then gave them the option to follow Volvo on Twitter. It's a simple enough ... more

Occasionally people may buy on impulse. Often, however, they go through a recognizable purchase cycle. "By targeting specific cycle stages, advertisers can increase relevancy by delivering appropriate messages at the right time," says Page Zero Media's Mona Elesseily in an article at Search Engine Land. Here are her definitions of the five ... more

We hear lots of advice about maintaining a clean list, and much of it centers on how to handle subscribers who seem uninterested in your messages. At a certain point, you might decide it's time to take them off your list. Before you do, though, consider these four "hidden" segments ... more

When subscribers open email messages, you have about seven seconds to answer their most important question: "What's in it for me?" According to Steve Adams, the best way to prove value is to deliver great content again and again. Here are three time-tested rules to keep in mind when writing ... more

"I get by with a little help from my friends." The words of that old Beatles song could well be applied to today's search marketers. After all, there's nothing like a good link-back among friends to boost search rankings. And in a recent guest post at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog, ... more