Digital marketing insights.

It was 2010, and I was in the midst of recovering from a horrific battle with stage IV cancer. Getting back to work was a challenge, and I was grateful to the staff and clients who stayed with our (then) design firm throughout my battle with the “Big C” then they’ll ever know. Late in the year, however, we ran into a challenge with one of our most important developers.

Google has incorporated Penguin into their Core Algorithm. That's big news. Prior to last week, sites that had deployed black hat SEO strategies such as link farms and similarly shady tactics were penalized. Not any more.

Google has announced that they'll be penalizing sites that use an interruptive pop-up, especially those that cover a significant amount of content.

When it comes the environment, some industries get all the attention. Automakers, energy companies, and chemical manufacturers come to mind. But, we’ve been thinking about starting a new trend in our own line of work. We think it’s time the world opted for environmentally-friendly website design for a change.

Being successful with inbound lead generation is a wonderful thing. Every time you open up your inbox, there are new sales opportunities waiting for you.

Last month, news broke that Microsoft would be buying the social platform LinkedIn for the low, low price of $26.2 billion USD. The announcement has already made its rounds through the business press, with analysts parsing through the price and wondering about the effects on shareholders.

WordPress is an amazing platform. Since its launch twelve years ago, it has grown to power over 25% of the ten million most popular websites – an impressive achievement by any measure. (The next most popular content management system is Joomla, with just 2.8% market share.)

If you’ve been following KAYAK’s progress at all, you’ll know that we’ve been growing by leaps and bounds over the past few years, making it onto the pages of mainstream media, including The Calgary Herald, Forbes, The Financial Post, Ottawa Citizen, and even the CTV news for our unique approach.

Just a few mornings ago, I was contacted privately by a colleague on Google Plus. Knowing that I create a lot of content, books and articles, he wanted to get my opinion on an unfortunate situation. Namely, that he’d caught a competitor “borrowing” content from his site… and by borrowing, I mean lifting it word-for-word (try the Copyscape Checker).

As many clients and friends already know, I’m a #craftbeerfan. It’s not just that I enjoy drinking craft (although I very much do), but I do love how the brewers offer some pretty out-of-the-box ideas. Craft brewers aren’t afraid to do things differently, and sometimes make seemingly mismatched ingredients work together in fun and interesting ways. Isn’t that really the essence of creativity, regardless of the canvas?

Recently, we had the chance to work with a new client who had a large, user-driven website containing over 8 million different pages. The content was unique and focused, and as a result the client was attracting thousands of visits from searchers every month. In order to monetize that traffic, they had installed Google’s AdSense tool, earning a few cents for each click generated through the ads (earning thousands of dollars per month).

Earlier this summer, I took one of the major printed directory companies (or what’s left of them) to task for ripping clients off via generic, expensive, and ineffective pay-per-click advertising. It's not that PPC doesn’t have any value, but it was the ineffective way in which it was sold and delivered and how costs are artifically inflated by those big companies.

In June, I found myself meeting new people at the #SocialShakeUp social media marketing conference in Atlanta. Rather than collect business cards at events, I have a habit of pulling up my mobile and adding people to a twitter list made for the event. Before long, one individual in particular caught my attention, for he had more than 300 thousand Twitter followers. Which of course, quickly became a topic of discussion.

Online reputation is a big subject that’s only getting bigger. We have already seen in the last few years that having lots of positive reviews and feedback around your business can encourage business… and that, conversely, even a single bad review can damage it (big time).

There is an interesting dichotomy floating around on the Internet. On the one hand, the web (and social media specifically) is supposed to be fostering creativity and individual expression. On the other hand, the partisan and anonymous nature of the Internet is fuelling a stronger and stronger herd mentality. A distance that causes people to act as they were wearing a mask.