Do the lazy days have you longing for a new design technique to try? You are in luck. This month’s collection of essential design trends is packed with functional ideas to spruce up design projects. And all of them are fairly easy to accomplish and will give your project a modern – or intentionally old-school – look. Here’s what’s trending in design this month: Angles There are so many ways to add and use funky angles in design projects. An angle...
At SMX West earlier this year I asked Jennifer Slegg to talk to me about a topic she is very passionate about, Google’s search quality raters guidelines. Jennifer has been in the SEO industry for over twenty-years, and she has helped the community through her writing, forum moderation, social media involvement, speaking and much more. When the quality raters guidelines[1] began to leak out, even before it was a public document[2], Jennifer was breaking these 160-plus page...
Visibility in the search results can determine whether users click through to your site or visit a competitor. Earning a Knowledge Panel is one way to tip the odds in your favor and claim as much search result real estate as Google’s willing to give. Knowledge Panels can also familiarize searchers with your organization and point them to resources they may be looking for, such as your customer service number, social profiles or even your most...
This technical SEO tutorial takes a step-by-step approach to create your free server logs dashboard using Elasticsearch. This approach harnesses the power of Elasticsearch to help create powerful visualizations using your log files. These visualizations help webmasters understand incoming traffic to their website by using data that is completely reliable and unsampled. And because it’s free, anyone can create this new dashboard to help SEOs gain a better understanding of technical SEO issues that might harm your website’s...
TikTok and LinkedIn under one roof? “Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions, as President Trump said on Friday that he was considering taking steps that would effectively ban the app from the United States,” The New York Times reported Friday. The company is in talks with the White House and reportedly negotiating to take over TikTok’s operations in US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Why...
30-second summary: The drive to be more productive, the thirst to learn something new – these are the primary reasons behind the rising popularity of podcasts. One in every four Americans over the age of 12 listens to podcasts religiously. Podcasts’ share of the ear is projected to increase by 120% in the next few years, with the total number of listeners exceeding 100 million by 2021. But how exactly can you use podcasts to boost your internet marketing campaign? How can...
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News[1] site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the...
Google announced some updates to how it plans to inform users about the ads they see, including a new type of schema, as well as the latest on Privacy Sandbox proposals to manage ad serving, measurement and more without third-party cookies and cross-site tracking on Friday. Ad Disclosure schema. Google’s testing an Ads Transparency Spotlight tool that relies on what it calls Ad Disclosure schema to show users information about the ads served on web pages. The Ads...
As a web designer, you’re constantly being bombarded with messages that tell you to acquire new skills, try new tools, and keep on hustling. But if you’re constantly changing things up, does it do the opposite of what you originally set out to do? In other words, if you always have to start over, is it possible to ever really achieve anything? I think it ultimately depends on why you’re making the change. When Change Is the Right Move...
About The Author Visual and UI/UX Designer, the author of dozens Adobe Photoshop and Sketch tutorials. Espresso addict. Watch enthusiast. More about Nikola Lazarević …[1] In Part 1[2] of this tutorial, Nikola Lazarević explained how you can create and tweak the body of a car in Sketch including the front signal lights and the tail lights. In this part, he continues with the design of the car windows, bumpers, headlights, the interior, and a few other elements. Are you...
I’ll get right to it. As an SEO I think you should care about brand performance. This isn’t an “I know better than you” post. I don’t. This isn’t a “you’re obsolete” post. You’re not. What I’m going to do here is make a series of statements that I think you’ll agree with and I believe that, together, we’ll come to the conclusion that SEOs should be actively involved in brand decisions. I think we’ll agree on that because we...
Expanding marketing efforts beyond your home country can be an exciting step. However, branching into new regions with PPC entails much more than simply copying your campaigns and changing the geographic targeting. Don’t rush into setting up international campaigns until you’ve thought out budgeting, channel allocation, account structure, localization, and unique regional concerns. In this article, I’ll expand on each of these points to help you establish a framework for beginning to target other countries. Budget for different...
Do you need a little inspiration boost? Well, then our new batch of wallpapers is for you. Designed with love by the community for the community, the wallpapers come in versions with and without a calendar for August 2020. Everybody loves a beautiful wallpaper to freshen up their desktops and home screens, right? To cater for new and unique artworks on a regular basis, we started our monthly wallpapers challenge[1] more than nine years ago, and from...
Bing announced[1] it has completed the migration from the old Bing Webmaster Tools to the new Bing Webmaster Tools[2]. With this launch, Bing also launched a new URL inspection tool, a new Robots.txt tester tool[3], the site scan tool[4] and a new webmaster guidelines[5]. With this migration Bing was able to consolidate 47 different links in the old version to 17 different links, since most of the links have been consolidated and bundled into fewer tools that...
On July 1, Facebook automatically opted advertisers into its new Limited Data Use setting for California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) compliance. When Limited Data Use (LDU) is enabled, Facebook restricts the way data from users detected to be from California can be stored and processed. The feature is already having a dramatic impact on advertisers. CCPA gives California residents the right to know how their data is being used, what categories of data are being collected and...
About The Author Product designer @ Wix • Coder • Running shoes addict More about Uri …[1] Just like during the Renaissance, we’re living in times of incredible cultural and artistic innovation. As the Internet evolves, browsers align, capabilities are added and accessibility of technology becomes easier, designers face new opportunities to create, think, and change their status with no-code tools. The word Renaissance — which means “rebirth” in French — was given to a tremendous period of philosophical and...
Verified Google My Business[1] profile owners in the U.S. can now add a Black-owned business attribute to their listings. Business attributes are highlighted as icons when customers view a business’ profile on mobile, as shown below. The new Black-owned business attribute. Source: Google. Why we care Google said it has seen “a surge in online searches for Black-owned businesses” in recent months — a period in which the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum. Distinguishing Black-owned businesses in local search...
In my last post, I shared how UGC[1] (User Generated Content) helped my nonprofit client create authoritative articles that 1.) saved both of us loads of time and 2.) crushed it in search and social. (Update: that same client’s organic blog traffic is now up +776% Y/Y). But the wins don’t stop there. I discovered that users’ comments on the posts themselves not only provide great supplemental content that may help the page rank, but also offer...
Google has added[1] support for image license metadata for licensable image label[2] to both Google Search Console reports and the Rich Results test tool. Google said on Twitter “we are happy to announce support for Image License structured data in Search Console in addition to the Rich Results Test tool.” Image license metadata. This is metadata and schema that you can use to display licensing information about content that appears in Google Images. Here is what the...
Bing fully launched[1] its new Bing Webmaster Tools Thursday, and with that, a brand new URL Inspection tool. The Bing URL Inspection tool[2] allows you to inspect Bing indexed version of your URLs allowing to detect potential indexing issues due to crawl or not following Bing Webmaster guidelines[3]. Google launched its URL Inspection tool over two years ago in June 2018[4]. How do the two compare? They are similar. Google and Bing’s URL Inspection tools are pretty similar. They essentially do...
Google is testing a larger font size in ad headlines.The first headline displays in a considerably larger font on line one with a second headline appearing below it. The test was spotted by PPC hubbub.We have been able to replicate this on the Google mobile app. In the example we captured, only the ad in the absolute top position displays with the new test formatting. In the screenshot below, the Geico ad at the top exhibits...
Despite the participation of more than 1,100 companies[1], including many household brands, it’s unlikely that the Stop Hate for Profit[2] Facebook ad boycott had a significant impact on the company’s revenues. The social network reports second quarter earnings Thursday but that won’t reflect July’s numbers. Major brands = 6%. According to data from Facebook and an analysis by Pathmatics, the top 100 brands (by spend) account for only about 6% of the company’s total ad revenue. However,...
At a time of unprecedent political polarization, there’s a rare bi-partisan consensus in Congress that the major U.S. tech companies have too much power. That proposition and its implications for the economy will be at the heart of a hearing tomorrow before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee. Socially distanced video testimony. The CEOs of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple will all give socially distanced video testimony, starting at noon Eastern, and be questioned by committee members, which...
Local Services Ads (LSAs) have been a success for Google. Originally designed for home services advertisers, Google initiated a test last August with select professional services categories (lawyers, financial planners and realtors) in San Diego and Houston. National rollout. After a successful trial run, Google has decided to formally roll out LSAs for professional services nationally. It will be available initially to lawyers, financial planners, real estate agents and tax preparers, although I’ve seen other categories[1] discussed...
Communication skills have always been important for marketers and they only get more important the further you are in your career. Being a “good communicator” takes on different shapes depending on whether you’re communicating within your own team, cross-functionally or with clients, executives or other stakeholders. Remote adds another dimension. “It’s been pretty eye-opening,” Mike Henderson, CMO for SuretyBonds.com, said of the shifting demands for communication since the pandemic sent everyone home during a Live with Search...