Expedia’s Brilliant Page Type Strategy
14 Aug
Posted in Marketing 5 comments

Expedia’s Brilliant Page Type Strategy

Every now and then I come across a strategy that is absolutely brilliant and need to share it with the world. I recently came across a strategy like this from Expedia, while doing competitor research for a client. At Distilled, we talk about page types a lot, which basically means your site’s taxonomy. These are all examples of page types:

  • Categories
  • Product pages
  • Guides
  • Homepage

Expedia is combining a few of these in a really smart way that is helping them rank these pages well.

They are putting their guide content on their city hub pages, and getting links for travel guide related keywords that are partial match anchors for their main keywords!

Let’s take a look. Read more about Expedia’s Brilliant Page Type Strategy …

Make Your Employees Rockstars
07 Aug
Posted in Miscellany 3 comments

Make Your Employees Rockstars

I live in New York City, the greatest city in the world. And because it’s the greatest city in the world, it’s the place that people of all types flock to. And many of these people are absolutely amazing at what they do, and get snapped up quickly. But guess what? Not only do they get snapped up quickly, but they get recruited heavily as well. And New York recruiters are fierce and devious. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been duped by a recruiter who has posed as someone in my industry and added me on LinkedIn, only to message me right after I accept and try to get me to talk about a job! I’ve also had them call me at work (AT WORK) numerous times and try to have a chat with me. Really? You think I’m going to chat with you while I’m at MY JOB??

You might not be able to pay what the big agencies can pay, and you’re most likely not Apple or Google that pay an INSANE amount of money to their employees (and especially developers). So, you have to beat this big guys at their own game.

How? By making your employees rockstars, whatever that means to them. Read more about Make Your Employees Rockstars …

Diagnosing SERP Volatility
03 Aug
Posted in Search Engine Optimization 11 comments

Diagnosing SERP Volatility

One of the perks of working agency side is access to a plethora of tools and a plethora of Analytics accounts across verticals. I also watch the Google SERPs religiously and use a few tools (SERPmetrics and Mozcast) to keep an eye on the algorithm and flux. It’s always good as an SEO/online marketer to keep an eye on the search results and see the changes broader.

Today I looked at the SERPmetrics flux capacitor and saw this: Read more about Diagnosing SERP Volatility …

Do Real Industry Stuff
31 Jul
Posted in Marketing 12 comments

Do Real Industry Stuff

Just last week I was sitting in the audience in the Westin in Seattle where I heard Wil Reynolds give a talk that was basically titled “Do Real Company Stuff“. Intriguingly, a few days before I had a brief exchange on Twitter with Branko, who I greatly respect and greatly enjoy his insights. He had just published this post on SEObook about small businesses and Google’s recent algorithm updates.

I wrote another post as a response to what he and others have said about outing, but I’m publishing this one instead after hearing Wil’s talk. Read more about Do Real Industry Stuff …

The Anatomy of A Viral Marketing Product Launch
12 Jul
Posted in Marketing 23 comments

The Anatomy of A Viral Marketing Product Launch

“Virality” has been the talk of the Internet, and especially blogging and marketing, worlds for a bit of time now. In my day-to-day I work with and have a lot of conversations with startups whose investors are constantly pushing them to “make the product more viral”. I’m not convinced that “virality” within a product is necessarily a positive, as a lot of people have been frustrated by the forced sharing that is now occurring throughout Facebook and the social web.

Where virality is useful, though, is when launching a new product. Everyone has a book or product idea, but relatively few know how to market their product well, especially pre-launch, to have the maximum number of people possible ready and willing to buy, share, and promote the product for you once it launches.

So how do you build virality into a product launch? How do you build this set of people? This is the question I am going to tackle today.

Read more about The Anatomy of A Viral Marketing Product Launch …