December 2013

  • Native Ads or Tricky Ads?

    Native Ads or Tricky Ads?

    My mother was once paid a useful sum of money to allow a character in Seinfeld to hold one of her books on camera. Now, companies pay to have their products used in TV shows. Product placement on TV might have been the earliest example of what you might now refer to with “native ads,”…

  • Funny Keyword Searches

    Funny Keyword Searches

    I stumbled onto Sally DeFord’s list of funny search strings that brought people to her website last night and had a moment of nostalgia. There was a time when a funny keywords post could be found on all SEO blogs at the end of the year. We got over the humor of it and moved…

  • Digital Marketing for Beauty Products

    Digital Marketing for Beauty Products

    Beauty products face some challenges when it comes to online marketing: Women want to try on beauty products, and many prefer to have personal service when choosing make up and skincare. Marketing for beauty products often relies heavily on the multisensory experience. The sheer quantity of information, from YouTube beauty gurus and beauty bloggers to…

  • Showrooming and Webrooming

    Showrooming and Webrooming

    RetailWire has been discussing showrooming vs. webrooming and 8th & Walton’s Saturday Morning Meeting has hailed the upsurge of webrooming among millennials as a good sign for brick and mortar retailers. They’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Showrooming is the practice of trying things out in physical stores — treating them as showrooms…

  • Whose Fault is Hacking?

    Whose Fault is Hacking?

    We have a couple of clients who have been dealing with malware at their websites, and the question arises: who’s at fault? The designer suggests that it’s the hosting company, the hosting company suggests that it’s the designer, and both want the site owners to update their passwords. It reminds me of the safety advice…

  • Google Analytics: Search and Monitor

    Google Analytics: Search and Monitor

    I’m getting ready for a Google Analytics training for the good people at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. We’re dividing the training into two sessions, so I’ve been musing on the best division for this group. There are plenty of ways to split the training, from Beginning/Advanced to Content People/Tech People, but in this…