Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Or maybe I should say #MLK for all you younger readers. :) As I'm sure you know, today's holiday is to recognize King's success in protesting racial discrimination. In King's most famous "I Have a Dream" speech, he declared his dream that one day we'll all be [...]
Both of my parents are from Iowa. In fact, most of my extended family still lives there. Now, if you're not from the Midwest, then you're probably picturing a farm surrounded by rows of corn and soybeans. Everyone lives on a farm in Iowa right? :) Well, you would actually be correct. My parents literally [...]
I'm excited to announce the results from our end year survey! First, a huge "Thank You!" to the 199 businesses that participated. Click here if you want to push us up over 200. :) The survey included 2 main questions. The first question we asked was "What's your #1 question about online marketing?" which I [...]
Remember the VH1 series, Where Are They Now? I loved that show growing up. I think my favorite were the episodes about the kid stars and how their lives changed as they grew up in and out of the spotlight. The one-hit-wonder episodes were also quite entertaining. Well I thought it would be fun to [...]
To explain why so many small business marketing campaigns fail, I'll use a simple dating analogy. I'm 32 so most of my good friends are now married, engaged, or in serious relationships -- except for Jack and Irwin who are very much single. (Note that I'm using fake names to protect the innocent here.) I'm [...]
My wife, Erin, and I celebrated our daughter Violet's first birthday yesterday. We joked that the celebration was really for us surviving a whole year with an infant. If you have kids, then you know exactly what I mean. That first year wasn't pretty, but boy was it worth it! In 365 days, Violet transformed [...]
As we approach the end of 2013, I've been reflecting on how much online marketing has changed over the past few years, and where it's headed in 2014. In 2012, we saw Google move local business listings from Google Places over to Google's social media platform, Google+. Then in 2013, Google AdWords advertising accounts were [...]
On Monday, I answered your #1 question about online marketing based on our end of the year survey. It you're on a quest to find that one, absolute best online marketing tactic, then do yourself a favor and read my last post. It'll save you from one of the biggest mistakes in online marketing. Today, [...]
As part of our planning for 2014, we're conducting a survey to determine which areas of online marketing, besides SEO and AdWords, our audience is most interested in. It's still early, but the results so far have shocked me. (If you'd like to participate, then click here. Everyone who completes the survey can also sign [...]
For the past year, I've been presenting and writing about the death of "old school" SEO tactics. These are tactics that worked well just a few years ago, but are now no longer effective and can get you penalized by Google. A Google penalty means you'll lose your search engine rankings, and with them, your [...]
