Inbound Marketing and Technology Blog

Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search quality, announced on his blog the launch of the fourth Penguin update, what Google is referring to as Penguin 2.0. According to Cutts, the update to the spam-fighting search algorithm will have largest impact on English queries (2.3%) since its original release in April 2012.

As an inbound marketing agency, in addition to actually being a B2B company, we have the opportunity to work with many types of B2B organizations on a daily basis through our marketing retainers. One of the most common challenges I hear across the board relates to keeping the sales funnel filled with warm leads. The good news is that today, more than ever, marketing is equipped to solve this problem. Setting realistic expectations is vital, however, as warm leads don’t magically appear out of thin air – they require hard work, persistence, and time.

Websites are the new elevator pitch. A typical website visitor gives a website five seconds to prove its value and convince the visitor to stay longer. What factors encourage staying over skedaddling? A new website visitor will look to see how your company can help them, what they can do on your website, and what value your website offers them. And no, they probably won't be impressed with dancing babies. 

The concept of inbound marketing is to provide great content to attract visitors to your site, convert them into leads, create a relationship with them, close them as customers, and then delight those customers. I have seen this methodology provide significant and powerful results across all different industries. Committing to an inbound marketing methodology, however, can require considerable manpower and time. It can also be a slow process in the beginning, which can be frustrating.

Friday is once again upon us and so too is the latest edition of The Friday 5: Five Headlines from Social Media, Inbound Marketing, SEO, and Web Design, a weekly roundup for ideas and news that you can use. This is what we have for you this week:

The age old battle between sales and marketing may not be entirely over, but we have come a long way.  I'll admit to playing into the friendly banter with my sales counterparts from time-to-time. But in all seriousness, can you imagine what would happen to a sales director if they stood up at a company meeting and said:

Did you know WordPress has a HubSpot plugin? WordPress - the open source content management system platform used by millions of individuals and businesses, can integrate with HubSpot - the inbound marketing platform with blogging, landing page, contacts management, email and marketing automation functions. If you're sold on HubSpot but don't want to give up your existing WordPress site, you can do incredible things using the HubSpot for WordPress plugin.

Of the things I despise doing such as mowing the lawn and doing my taxes, returning broken items to the store ranks near the top. I once tried to return a new laptop because the screen didn’t work. My high expectations as I pulled it out of the box turned to immediate frustration as I tapped at random keys in the hopes the screen would light up. This frustration followed me as I walked up to the customer service desk and pushed the computer across the counter. About the only thing worse than this feeling of frustration is feeling like an idiot which is what happened next after a scrawny tech guy did a quick inspection of my “broken” laptop.

Effective landing pages are great assets for any online marketer. They are a means to prove your company is a thought leader, capture visitors’ contact information, and begin to create a longer term relationship with those visitors.

Howdy! Yes, Friday is on us once again. Be honest—are you looking to fill the hours before heading home for the weekend? We’ve got something to keep you occupied for a few minutes. It’s a new edition of The Friday 5: Five Headlines from Social Media, Inbound Marketing, SEO, and Web Design, a weekly roundup for ideas and news that you can use. This is what’s on tap for this week: