For those just getting started in the internet marketing arena, it can be a daunting task to keep up with the deluge of information that is put out there on a daily basis. There are numerous blogs, videos and webinars with great information that is not to be missed. Hiding your head in the sand isn’t an option if you’re going to stay ahead of the game and stay at the top of the SERPs. But how do you sort through all of it?

First of all there are nifty recaps that are compiled everyday that highlight informational posts from around the web. Here are several to get you started: (more…)

Ardala Evans

Ardala is a Project Manager working with the Client Services team at Vertical Measures. She supervises the flow and completion of the monthly tasks for the clients. Ardala also gathers data and assists in the report creation process.

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Cyber Monday is the Monday immediately following Black Friday and Thanksgiving, and is the biggest online shopping day of the year. Most online stores offer discounts and deals, and consumers have the luxury of shopping from home and avoiding the Black Friday in-store madness. Cyber Monday 2011 is quickly approaching and easily might be one of the best yet. With the economy in its current state, consumers are counting on great sales to get them through the holiday shopping. Since the term “Cyber Monday” was coined in 2005, it’s been the biggest day for online sales, with more and more shoppers choosing online shopping over the frenzy of Black Friday. Last year this day made history with the first ever billion dollar online shopping day, an increase of 16 percent from the previous year. For those of you with e-commerce websites, it’s time to prepare! (more…)

Sarah Schager

Sarah Schager is an internet marketing strategist at Vertical Measures who specializes in organic search engine optimization. Some of her specialties include social media strategy, link acquisition, local search and content development management.
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News from Google earlier this week has the SEO industry in an uproar. In an effort to increase searcher’s privacy, Google will roll out encrypted search (https://www.google.com) results by default for users signed into their Google accounts. This change affects brands who utilize Google Analytics to analyze their search engine traffic and the keywords users search to navigate to their sites. Google made sure to point out that brands that use PPC will still have access to keyword data from users who click their ads, and that this change only affects organic search.
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Kaila Strong

Kaila is a Sr. Account Manager at Vertical Measures. She works directly with clients to evaluate and analyze their overall Internet Marketing needs, creates sales proposals and recommendations. In addition she regularly reports on client rankings, gives SEO advice to brands in a variety of industries and manages client expectations.

Kaila has a background in social media marketing, link building, SEO and content marketing. She’s an active blogger on SearchEngineWatch.com, and an avid social media user (@cliquekaila on Twitter). She brings her experience to the table with new clients and enjoys writing about her experiences as well here on the VM blog and throughout the web.

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The evolution of HTML has been a long transition away from how things look and toward what things mean. Gone are the days when web pages were cobbled together in HTML tables to compensate for limited layout controls. (Or, rather, those days should be gone. You know who you are.) Improvements in the language and the rise of CSS allowed web programmers to build pages that looked great for users and made better sense to search engines.

But even with the progress in semantic markup – coding to describe what content conveys, not what it looks like – there has still been the necessary evil of <div> and <span> tags. These semantically meaningless elements continued to be used as a fallback for structure and design when semantic tags fell short. While it was closer to the ideal than tables, it still was programming crutch to fill a shortcoming in the HTML language, and another bit of meaningless code for search engines to work through to get to the stuff with purpose. (more…)

David Gould

David is the Web & Design Strategist at Vertical Measures. David is responsible for the look and functionality of the Vertical Measures website, blog and online applications. His programming skills allow him to complement form with function: with a strong technical background, he is able to combine innovative design with dynamic programming. David developed and maintains Vertical Measures’ proprietary project management software, EDWARD.

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If you build it (and optimize it), they will come. But what good is that if they turn around and leave? It’s not enough to have a well-optimized page, you need to have a page that is compelling and converts. We’ve all clicked through to websites that rank well, but once you get there you have an instant, visceral reaction that you want to leave. Ugly. Dated. Unprofessional. Untrustworthy. Confusing. If you aren’t paying enough attention to how well your website manages the visitors you get, you are turning away business that is on your doorstep. Search engines are not clients, are not customers. So how can you effectively influence the people who are once they’ve found you? Here are some tips to help ensure that your website’s landing pages are effective, not just existent. (more…)

David Gould

David is the Web & Design Strategist at Vertical Measures. David is responsible for the look and functionality of the Vertical Measures website, blog and online applications. His programming skills allow him to complement form with function: with a strong technical background, he is able to combine innovative design with dynamic programming. David developed and maintains Vertical Measures’ proprietary project management software, EDWARD.

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