Google Reveals Top Searches of 2013: From Nelson Mandela to Twerking

What did you search for on Google in 2013? Were you curious about “twerking” like the many others who pushed that search query to the top of Google’s “what is” search list? Or perhaps you wanted to learn more about Nelson Mandela who garnered the No. 1 spot in Google search this year.

Whatever you searched, we lived, and Google once again made memories come alive in its end-of-year Zeitgeist video.

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7 CRO Lessons Learned in 2013

For this month’s series, we’re providing a little bit of perspective on the hectic events of 2013. As we’ve left Enhanced Campaigns pretty well covered this year, this week we’ll be dedicating our time to some of the other (non-Enhanced Campaigns) initiatives, tactics, strategies, and features that we used to excel in 2013 here at PPC Hero.

As Eric explained yesterday, December’s series is related to those things in 2013 that our team has found to be the most enlightening or crucial to continued PPC growth and/or performance. The list of things that have changed over the last year is much more expansive, but when presented with the opportunity to discuss what I found most effective in the last year – I was a bit caught off guard. How does one narrow that list down and pick just ONE?? Really, in our case, we had to pick just FIVE…but you get it.





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SearchCap: The Day In Search

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:

    Retailers Spending Record Levels On Paid Search In 2013 Holiday Season

    An early look at the paid search performance this holiday season shows retailers invested at record levels, beginning earlier, and are realizing new levels of revenue from their paid search efforts this year. The record highs in paid search activity set in 2012 were surpassed this year as clicks increased 27 percent, impressions rose 12.5 […]

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6 Ways to Accelerate Your Local SEO Success in 2014

Forecasting SEO trends for local is quite difficult – primarily because I know in my heart of hearts that local SEO isn't a trend, phenomenon or fad. Local – along with personalized search – is a necessary evolution to truly optimize the search experience for users across the globe. It is a mindset that SEO professionals can't "arrive to" late.

Early adoption of best practices, voraciously reading case studies and experimenting on your own is mission critical to surviving this new era of marketing. Join me on a palatable overview on what's happened already, and what's coming up next.

This article will cover Google Hummingbird; the overlap between mobile and local; a SoLoMo case study using Pinterest, turnkey local SEO strategies; tools; and a few important infographics.

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Google Webmaster Tools Adds Debugging Support in Structured Data Dashboard

If you utilize structured data markup on your websites, you'll be happy to know that Google has added debugging support in the Webmaster Tools console.

When people begin working with structured data for implementation on their websites, mistakes happen. It's easy to implement partially without realizing it, or simply mark it up incorrectly on the page. But other than copying from guides, there are no easy tools for effectively implementing structured data.

Google added a structured data dashboard to Webmaster Tools last year, and now will show you any errors or problems with your structured data that Google encounters while crawling the website.

This feature has been beta tested with select webmasters since June, and has been enhanced by their suggestions for improved functionality to make it into the newly launched debugging tool.

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Matt Cutts: Google Penalties Get More Severe for Repeat Offenders

For website owners who have been penalized by Google for violating the webmaster guidelines, it can take months to rectify issues, get back into the index, and regain rankings. However, that isn't always the case.

Many people remember when Interflora was penalized shortly before Mothering Sunday in the UK for massive amounts of native advertising spam in various UK newspapers. They were back in the index very quickly, and that is the topic of a new webmaster help video, where Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts is asked to explain the kind of penalty that Interflora was hit with and how they managed to get back in Google's good books in just 11 days.

Cutts began by saying he doesn't like to talk about specific penalties or companies; rather, he prefers to speak in generalizations so everybody can learn and benefit. Generally this is true, as Google rarely calls out specific companies, but it does happen.

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Google+ Launches Social Ad Called +Post to Appear Across Display Network

Google+ has figured out a new way to monetize its social platform and drive more traffic back to it from across the web, with a promoted posts feature called “+Post.”

The concept of +Post is similar to what you may be used to in other social networks – a brand pays for premium placement of a post – except  instead of ads showing up within the Google+ network, they will be placed across Google’s Display Network, driving users back to the brand’s Google+ profile.

From Google:

    +Post ads amplify your brand’s content by easily turning Google+ posts into display ads that run across the web. The live, social ad format allows you to go beyond clicks to live conversations with your audience. People can join a Hangout On Air, add a comment, follow your brand or give a +1, right from an ad.

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