Text has always been the backbone of SEO … but that's starting to change Blogs were the go-to for early content marketing. Though images, audio and video eventually became important as content, they were mostly relevant to SEO through alt tags or transcripts. Optimization works differently today. Video SEO matters. Google recently updated its Continue Reading...

My brother and I loved Grandad Fraser's bedtime stories. When my grandparents visited, we would beg him to tell us a story. He'd always oblige, spinning tales of David and James's adventures in wild places in Africa, Asia and Australia. I still remember his deep voice talking about me and my brother floating down the "great gray-green Limpopo Continue Reading...

Digital content used to run on volume. No longer. I’ve done volume work before — and I have peers who still do. Most clients didn’t care about the quality as long as we published by the deadline; the goal was to shovel as much content as possible into Google’s hungry maw like coal into a steamship boiler. Volume was one of the biggest keys Continue Reading...

Remember New Coke? I don’t; I was born a little too late. But you can bet I’ve heard about it. Everyone has. It’s one of the biggest new product flops in history, born of corporate hubris and misguided focus group data. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Coca-Cola was under a lot of pressure from PepsiCo. Its market share was declining, and Continue Reading...

Vine may be dead, but it casts a long shadow. If you’ve ever seen a video from the Paul brothers or heard a Shawn Mendes song, you’ve felt the legacy of Vine. Many creators and online celebrities got their start creating 6-second loops on the short-lived platform. Vine died in 2017, but right as it was shutting down, China’s ByteDance was Continue Reading...

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the late Marvin Hamlisch. For those who don’t know, Hamlisch was one of the most prolific and successful conductors and composers of the last century, winning multiple Emmy, Golden Globe, Oscar and Tony awards (the prestigious “EGOT”) and a Pulitzer Prize. And I, a wet-behind-the-ears college student, Continue Reading...

Sell online? Chances are at least some of your business runs through an online retail platform of some sort. Amazon. Etsy. eBay. TikTok. Meta (Instagram or Facebook). These platforms make life easier for people who want to sell on the Internet. And it’s worth it for them; they make a lot of money. But is it worth it for you? Using one of Continue Reading...

Google rules the search market, owning 82% of all global search activity. It’s impossible for the search giant to change something without shaking the entire digital world. And right now, there’s a lot of shaking. Google’s changing huge chunks of its search model, including updates aimed at making content expertise more relevant, AI Continue Reading...

AI is all over the news. It’s inescapable — and even in its current fledgling form, it’s changing digital marketing, agencies and business models. The news is full of people yelling about AI. Either it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, or it’s going to turn into Skynet and kill us all. No in between. The truth is less Continue Reading...

Middlemen are the backbone of modern marketing. They’re all names you know. Google for search; Meta, X and TikTok for social media; Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and Amazon Ads for advertising. All the power in digital has been in the hands of the middlemen since the beginning. Why? Access to audience. They gave users value through Continue Reading...