This is awkward. I thought we were just keeping it casual.  It’s okay that you are in my life, I like that you are, but sometimes you are a bit too needy. It’s getting uncomfortable. We need to have “The Talk.”  I’m talking to you, email automation. More and more businesses are (smartly) integrating email marketing into their automation strategy. There are so many good reasons for it — it creates efficiency, it helps you stay top of mind, and it makes it easier to present relevant offers and content to…

As design trends come and go, material design is the latest that has caught the attention of designers and developers alike. In this article you will not only learn what material design is, but how this latest UI design philosophy aims to merge the fundamentals of graphic design with the science of motion and light to provide a solid foundation when building a UI. When Google unveiled its mobile design guidelines called “Material Design” at the 2014 I/O developers conference, it was received with mixed emotions across the design and…

Instagram recently launched a new feature called Instagram Stories, described by the social platform as “a new feature that lets you share all the moments of your day… As you share multiple photos and videos, they appear together in a slideshow format: your story.” With upwards of 500 million active monthly users, Instagram has a massive audience. It’s not surprising, then, that the new feature has sparked a lot of conversation among users. Some had positive feedback: if you think about it… #Instagram stories actually makes a lot of sense…

We live in a time when anyone with a computer has the opportunity to start a global company, find investors through crowdfunding, or develop a mass following on social media. It’s an incredible time to be alive, because anyone has the power to build a brand. As awesome as this is, it also means that the competition for the attention of your brand’s audience is more vast. When you go to tell your company’s story or share an announcement, you’ll find that the news may not have the same impact…

Melania Trump plagiarized her RNC speech. People are roaming the streets like zombies looking for Pokémon. Taylor, Kim and Kanye are fighting. Again. The new Ghostbusters movie has been released. The world is in turmoil around us. Every day, we wake up to new headlines, celebrity spats and upcoming holiday weekends. As brands and as marketers, we want to be timely and we want to be relevant. That makes jumping on the bandwagon, newsjacking, real-time marketing an attractive option to help get our name and our message out there to…

Last week, I attended the Public Relations Society of America’s Northeast District Conference (PRxNE 2016) to accompany Overit’s Jen Van Iderstyne as she presented on SEO, and to learn from other industry professionals from across the region. We’ve all heard about how PR is evolving, but the experts at PRxNE 2016 truly drove the point home with presentations focusing on Facebook analytics, multicultural PR, influencer campaigns, LinkedIn strategies and more. I wasn’t able to take part in all of the sessions outlined in the schedule, as much as I wanted…

Last month I had the opportunity to attend the Zenith Digital Marketing Conference in Duluth, Minnesota. The event was organized like champs by the team from AimClear in conjunction with the Duluth Chamber of Commerce. I got to speak about SEO site audits, sharing my process and tips on the periodic analysis that all sites should undergo to drive ongoing strategies. It was a blast, but I’m not going to write about my session. Instead, it was when I was done speaking, after the nerves had subsided and I got to settle…

Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at keywords. So much time that I’ve found myself dreaming in spreadsheets. It’s just one of those situations where, suddenly, all the keyword research is due for all sorts of projects. For sitemaps, for audits, for on-page optimization, the list goes on. The thing is, SEO and optimizing for keywords isn’t the same as it used to be. I’m not generating a list of phrases where the rule is “you must insert these phrases, verbatim, onto your page.”…

How we communicate with our clients is critical to how our relationship with them progresses. Anyone who has worked in an agency understands the intricacies of client communication – understanding what the client wants and needs, balancing brainstorms with budget, and working together to achieve mutually-accepted goals.

On Friday, February 19, Google confirmed rumors  that had begun flooding Twitter. After a long period of testing, sidebar ads were officially going away, with additional ad space pushed to the bottom of search results and a fourth ad placement standardized at the top of results. Google’s announcement spurred further speculation over time as to the potential impact (or lack thereof) on AdWords advertisers, as well as Google’s motivations behind the change. With all the breakneck feedback on #AdWords‘s elim of right rail ads, surprising how few have pondered whether it’s…