Make It With Michael

By Jini Maxin Let’s face it… With over 200+ Google ranking factors making sure the law of the land prevails, and over 1 billion websites fighting for spots in search engines – if you ignore SEO, your online sales are likely to go south, especially if you are unlucky enough to get struck with a Google penalty. If you do not want to fall victim to a Google penalty, ensure that whenever the Google God’s wave their magic wand and whip up an algorithm update/change, such as Penguin, Pigeon, Panda, Hummingbird, or the recent RankBrain roll out, that you comply. But then again, how do online website owners actually comply when Google reveals only so much? Even if you keep your nose pressed against Google’s conference room, you won’t get to know much. So, how do you actually entice Google’s robots to drive more traffic to your website ? Simple. Play Along. Learn through trial and error. Stay on the learning curve. Perhaps then, you’ll be able to differentiate what works and what doesn’t...

By Kendall Walters There were lots of new features, big announcements, and product updates to keep up with in February. This month, Twitter started testing custom profiles in DMs, Facebook rolled out job posting functionality, Pinterest introduced new visual search tools, and Snapchat began selling Spectacles online—and that’s not all. It can be hard to keep up with the rate of change on social media, but you don’t need to worry about missing something important. We’ve rounded up all the updates—big and small—from the major social platforms to ensure that you don’t miss a thing. Table of contents Twitter Facebook Instagram Pinterest YouTube LinkedIn Hootsuite Snapchat Whatsapp Twitter Updates to prevent abuse On February 7, Twitter announced new improvements to prevent abuse and harassment . Earlier in the month, Twitter introduced the ability for users to report Tweets that mention them , even if the author has blocked them. Now, Twitter has also taken steps to: Sto...

By Christina Newberry With more than 150 million daily active users watching 10 billion videos per day, Snapchat has a highly engaged audience that’s becoming simply too big to ignore. In this complete guide to Snapchat advertising, we’ll look at some key ways to use Snapchat ads to connect with fans and build your brand identity on this powerful social platform Bonus: Download a free guide that reveals how to easily create and use a custom Snapchat geofilter to promote your business for as little as $5. Why advertise on Snapchat? Snapchat is a particularly important platform for brands whose target market aligns with Snapchat’s core demographics . Consultancy Millward Brown found that 88 percent of the users who saw Snapchat ads from a recent campaign for men’s deodorant fit into the target 13- to 34-year-old demographic —which should come as no surprise, since a full 86 percent of U.S. Snapchat users fall into that age category. The network reaches 41 percent of all 18- t...