Editor’s Note: With today’s blog post, Bridgeline is happy to introduce our newest contributor, Jesse West. Jesse joins Bridgeline from our Denver, CO office.

Well it happened again. Another announcement from Google has spread across blogs, twitter feeds, and news sites. This time it was Google’s release of its Knowledge Graph search enhancement that began rolling out on May 16, 2012.

Google has been adding more information than just links on its search engine results page (SERP) for some time now. Search for “Major League Baseball” and the first result is a group of scores from recent and upcoming games. Search for a movie and you’ll get show times at local theaters. Knowledge Graph continues that trend by adding more information to the right side of the SERP.
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I’ve been a fan of Pinterest for quite some time and have seen some major changes over the last two months. Many of the tweaks are the result of a phenomenally quick rise to ‘Net stardom (the social network crossed the 10 million unique monthly visitors mark faster than any other standalone site in history), and have been cobbled together pretty well to keep the network clean, fair and relevant. Some changes that haven’t been applied, though, are leading to practices that are likely exactly why the site’s suddenly seen a slowdown in traffic.

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From SEO to ccTLDs, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Digital Strategy acronyms that, as marketers, we need to deal with on a daily basis. But it shouldn’t be your job to worry about what all of these acronyms mean, because at the EOD, it’s CR and ROI that you really want to see improve (for an intelligible translation of that last sentence, see the glossary below).

In order to get ahead – and stay there – in today’s marketing world, it’s becoming more and more necessary that you and your team of salespeople, project managers, designers and developers know the jargon, and that they can teach it to your customers. Nothing drives a customer whose main concern is to run his or her business crazy faster than the challenge of trying to decipher what the web is supposed to be doing for them. It’s hard enough to work with the medium in the first place – especially if it’s a new process added to the brick-and-mortar store.

But – don’t worry – Bridgeline is here to help. Before you tie up your tongue trying to explain the meanings of so many, take a look at our list below. We’ve assembled a glossary of acronyms and their definitions that should help most anyone quickly explain what, exactly, they mean when they’re describing the CPA inside their CMS, how it relates to B2B versus B2C and which KPIs help prove their SEO and show a significant MoM, and YoY, increase in their BL.

Let Bridgeline DSG help you dig through the complex acronyms and endless jargon and improve your UX so you can get back to learning other important acronyms – like on FB.

DSG:

The Digital Strategy Group at Bridgeline Digital is a powerhouse team of marketing gurus with strong experience in journalism, advertising, DS and UX. From content strategies to intelligent marketing, the DSG teaches you to make sure your website works as well for the SEs as it does for your users – leading to increased CR and ROI.

DSG is the only acronym that you need. Follow the Jump to peruse a pretty impressive glossary of some of the acronyms you’re probably using every day. Now you can let everyone know what they actually mean…. Read the rest of this entry »

At Bridgeline, one of the prevailing lessons we’ve learned is that, despite increasing complexity and a plethora of choice ingredients, there’s a very basic recipe for digital marketing success that blends three major parts: the right team, the best tools and most effective technologies, all in appropriate proportions to produce strong, strategic results.

In this third installment of our series on “The 3T’s of Modern Marketing,” this post is focused on the technology your team (by now an undoubtedly well-oiled machine using near-perfectly appropriate tools) needs to be using to help insure consistent success of your digital strategies.

Does your business plan warrant an enterprise solution, custom- built and proprietary to it?

Is the ever-popular Open Source market/movement a good place for your needs?

Does your company’s main focus and process rest on a single function that would benefit from a self-hosted, self-supported and perpetually licensed solution – which would justify all the extra overhead? Or can you operate a spry, quick-moving business using a SaaS (sometimes called “Cloud”) hosting model and save on that extra hardware, IT and development cost?

Whichever sounds more appealing to you, there’s little doubt that you’re going to need to explain to someone – or a board of someones – exactly why you need it done just that way.  Bridgeline Digital recently published a whitepaper to help you make that assessment, and to come up with a truly informed answer. We’re also holding a webinar on Tuesday, March 27th, from 1:00 – 2:00 PM EST, to give you even more solid background information.

Our webinar will feature a Digital Marketing Expert panel that includes Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Evangelist and Founder of the Content Marketing Institute), Tony White (Founder & CEO of ARA Logica) and Brett Zucker (CTO of Bridgeline Digital).

To get in on this action, download the whitepaper, and then sign up for the webinar.

Read on for a sneak peek of what’s coming up… Read the rest of this entry »

At Bridgeline, we’ve learned that despite the increasing complexity, there’s a very basic recipe for digital success. A simple blend of three major ingredients: the right team, the best tools and most effective technologies – all in the right proportions – create more effective marketing strategies.

In a second installment of our Modern Marketing series, after our last post from a few days ago, today’s is focused on the tools your (now solid and sensible) team should have in their arsenal for digital success. It’s not enough to have the coolest CMS platform – although that helps a lot – or to run the most complex and multi-faceted analytics solution. In fact, it’s more about the integration of all of your tools, and how they work together to make your digital strategies work, than any one solution.

You’ve got to have a pretty clear idea of which tools are most appropriate to your goals and  make sure you’re using them correctly to make that happen. Bridgeline Digital just recently published a new whitepaper and will be holding a webinar to assist you in doing  just that.

Our webinar on Tuesday, March 27th from 1:00 – 2:00PM EST, will feature a Digital Marketing Experts including moderator Scott Liewehr (Web Content Management strategist, analyst and consultant and President of the Board of Directors at CMPros), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Evangelist and Founder of the Content Marketing Institute), Tony White (Founder & CEO of ARS Logica) and Brett Zucker (CTO of Bridgeline Digital).

To get in on this action, download the whitepaper, and then sign up for the webinar.

Read on for a sneak peek of what you’re in for … Read the rest of this entry »

The explosions of mobile, social networking, wi-fi and constant connectivity has created a world  with more selection, more options, and more more than ever before. More than 3.5 billion pieces of information fly weekly across Facebook alone -  the world’s fastest growing social platform, but certainly not the only one.

This constantly expanding interactive landscape now covers the entire planet, and the world’s become much smaller because of it. Another outcome of the digital expansion: access. A path for you to get into the fracas has become a hot commodity. In 2010 alone, $8.5 billion (28%) of all money generated by marketing agencies was spent on digital services, according to AdAge. Other predictions show that marketers in the U.S. will increase that spending in 2012 by 3.7%.

80.8% of smartphone and tablet owners now research products regularly online. A whopping 41.4% of those make purchases from their devices regularly according to eMarketer – and sometimes they do both while in the store. It’s no surprise, then, that successful digital campaigns take full advantage of all of these trends.

At Bridgeline, we’ve learned that despite the increasing complexity, there’s a very basic recipe for digital success that blends three major ingredients: the right team, the best tools and most effective technologies, all in appropriate proportions.

To get a handle on the new marketing landscape, and to wrap your mind around exactly what’s going on, it might helpful to give your perspective an upgrade. Bridgeline Digital has published a new whitepaper to help you do just that, and we’re holding a webinar on March 27th, from 1:00 – 2:00 PM EST, to help foster that change, too.

Our webinar will feature a panel of Digital Marketing Experts including moderator Scott Liewehr (Web Content Management strategist, analyst and consultant and President of the Board of Directors at CMPros), Joe Pulizzi (Content Marketing Evangelist and Founder of the Content Marketing Institute), Tony White (Founder & CEO of ARS Logica) and Brett Zucker (CTO of Bridgeline Digital).

To get in on this action, download the whitepaper, and then sign up for the webinar.

Read on for a sneak peek of what’s to come… Read the rest of this entry »