Resources
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Early Results from Split Testing JavaScript for SEO
With our new ODN platform, we were excited to test the impact of JavaScript on search performance. Google has been talking about rendering JavaScript and indexing the resulting DOM for some time, and others around the industry have been testing various aspects of it, figuring out when it times out, and finding out the differences between inline, external, and bundled JS. When we ran an SEO split test to remove a reliance on JavaScript, we saw an uplift in search performance. Read more
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Hey E-commerce Managers, Amazon Loses Their 1-Click Patent This Year
I wanted to make sure that you know that Amazon is losing their patent on 1-Click checkout this year. It’s always been amazing to me that they were granted this patent in the first place, but they were (in the US - the EU took the unsurprising view that it was too obvious to patent). If you aren’t already, I strongly recommend speaking to counsel and the product team to build in a plan to launch a one-click option as early as you are legally allowed. Read more
The New York Times Makes Poor Argument for Breaking up Google
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At the end of April, The New York Times published an opinion piece that was widely circulated among my network entitled “Is It Time to Break Up Google?”. I saw a lot of people excited at the idea, and the concept of a monopolistic Google obviously resonated with many. Unfortunately, I thought that it was a poor article and that there was not nearly enough critical thinking being applied. Read more
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What We Learned in April 2017: The Digital Marketing Month in a Minute
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A lot has happened in April in the digital marketing world; so much so that it’s been hard to distill everything down to one blog post. The fake news and extremist content sagas rumble on, while The Guardian shows us that AMP stands to be a major part of publishers’ traffic drivers. There’s also Twitter’s new progressive web app (PWA), which shows the level of functionality you can begin to expect from the new software methodology. Read more
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Boost Your Brand: How to Create Content for Awareness
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Historically, when digital marketing agencies venture into content creation, it’s with the hope of increasing the number, or strength, of backlinks. This post however, aims to challenge you to think more broadly about the value of your content. Read more
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Site Migration
We’ve all heard the horror stories about sites that have migrated from one domain to another and experienced a huge drop in traffic and visibility, and those that have suffered the same fate just by changing protocol. Whether you have acquired a domain, want to roll up your M-Dot site into a responsive design or desire a move from http to https, devising a solid action plan to avoid traffic and revenue loss is paramount. Read more
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Getting Started with Measuring Brand Awareness
Few people dispute that brand awareness is an important consideration for companies of all sizes - there’s a half-trillion dollar global advertising industry built largely on that premise, after all. In the SEO industry, however, we’re probably not as aware of it as we should be. How do you quantify brand awareness? There are four main ways of posing this question, which we'll answer in turn. Read more
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What We Learned in March 2017: The Digital Marketing Month in a Minute
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This month’s industry news has well and truly broke free from the industry bubble, with mainstream media extensively covering the ongoing issue of certain online adverts showing next to extremist content, which has gotten Google into serious trouble. There’s plenty of other Google news this month, along with some deeper dives into the state of the agency industry and the future of smartphone technology. Read more
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Non-Profits Under Fire - Battling Problems With Charity Digital Marketing in 2017
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Charity marketing has always been an unusual challenge but now they are facing a new future, one that can be difficult to address from within a sector where frugality can be praised over success, and difficult to understand from without. This post is designed to help bridge that gap by offering some insight for the people who don’t work in charities, and some digital solutions for people who do. Read more
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5 Forms of Google Advertising Coming Soon
It was not surprising to see a story come out about ads being read out by Google Home, but it seems many people were indeed surprised. It seems it’s easy to forget sometimes that Google is an advertising company! On that note, here are five ways that you can’t yet buy advertising from Google, but I predict you will be able to soon: Read more
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4 Simple Ways to Upgrade Creative Content Into Media-Friendly Stories
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Working in PR, I (of course!) spend a lot of time reading news articles where the agenda is driven by stories, whether they are real life events, trends, public announcements, finding product launches or prominent anniversaries. But have you ever stopped to think about what headline stands out most when browsing news online or which image makes you stop to pick up a free paper? Ultimately, it comes down to the strength of that narrative. Read more
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What We Learned in February 2017: The Digital Marketing Month in a Minute
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It might be the shortest month, but there’s been a great deal happening in both the tech world and at Distilled in February. Snap Inc. has gone public, Uber is stumbling and Google’s latest algorithm update is making waves. At Distilled, SearchLove San Diego has flown by in a blur of cutting edge advice and tactics, while we’ve been busy writing on the Distilled blog, too. Read more
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How to Embrace Being Agile as a Small Business
When I first started working in marketing it was for family members with local businesses. Their websites were less than 50 pages and they weren’t complicated. I remember reading popular marketing blogs and trying strategies that never worked, and I always wondered why. Eventually, I realized a lot of these strategies were written towards an audience that worked on much larger websites. Today, I spend a majority of my time working on larger websites. I now realize there are definite benefits to having a smaller business. The issue is I don’t see many small businesses embracing these benefits! Read more
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Do it Yourself SEO Split Testing Tool With Causal Impact
We've got a new tool to share! This tool allows you to measure the effect of any SEO split tests you might run on your website. You can find it here. This post will walk you through how to use it. Read more
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Google Expanding Carousel Layout for “Best” Keywords
Over the past year we’ve seen Google expanding their carousel layout and experimenting with new UI for SERPs (see Dr Pete’s helpful mega-guide to the SERP layout), last week we saw some new layouts around filtering and today we’re noticing an expanded rollout across some commercial keywords that will dramatically impact user behaviour. Read more
