Suds and Search 52 | Ginny Marvin, Google Ads Product Liaison

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My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is Ginny Marvin, the former Editor-in-Chief at Third Door Media. Third Door Media is the publisher of Search Engine Land, Marketing Land & MarTech Today. They also host the popular conference series Search Marketing Expo with nine events scheduled in 2021.

At the time our episode was filmed, Ginny had just finished her tenure at Third Door Media and we spend most of our conversation reflecting on her time there. Very recently, Ginny announced that she has accepted a role at Google as its new Ads Product Liaison.

Over the course of her career, Ginny has had a truly unique perspective on the industry. I started reading Search Engine Land back in 2008. It has remained the go-to destination for search marketers seeking daily news coverage, breaking stories, industry trends, feature announcements, and product changes.

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10 ideas for local blog posts

In this week’s video, I share 10 ideas for local blog posts to help you write better localized content. Adding more localized content to your blog helps cast a wider net and get your brand more exposure, so use these ideas, or springboard off of them and come up with your own. You’ll show up in more local searches and outpace your competitors, which means more leads when local customers are ready to buy!

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Suds and Search 51 | Carrie Hill, Local Search Analyst and Community Manager at Sterling Sky

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My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is Carrie Hill. For over 13 years, Carrie has been one of the most important voices in digital marketing for small and medium businesses. Carrie has contributed her talents at industry conferences, on podcasts, webinars, and blogs.

She has presented at virtually every Local SEO conference including LocalU, Whitespark Local Search Summit, and all of the different Pubcon events. She’s a prolific writer as well. She has contributed to Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, and on the Sterling Sky company blog.

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Why it’s important to have a blog

In this week’s video, I share why it’s important to have a blog and how it affects potential visibility in searches. With the right strategy, a blog can drastically increase local visibility, which leads to more customers and more business. Watch the video for all the details.

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Suds and Search 50 | Lee Manning, Co-founder of Armchair Marketing

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My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is Lee Manning, Co-founder of Armchair Marketing. Lee is generally considered one of, if not the top automotive digital marketers in the UK. Prior to starting his own agency, Lee had an amazing run at a UK top 20 automotive dealer group. His work quickly garnered attention and the group he was responsible for began winning awards…lots of awards. Over an 18 month span, Lee and his team won 18 prestigious industry awards.

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The new automotive study from Google

In this week’s video, I share the details about Google’s newest automotive study titled “The auto dealer’s guide to navigating today’s digital landscape”. It shares several interesting stats about how buyer behavior has changed due to COVID and the resulting lockdowns and provides 4 tips to position your dealership for future success.

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Google Rolls Out New Way to Convert on the SERP with Lead Form Ad Extensions

Example of google lead form ad extensionEveryday, searchers turn to Google for a variety of reasons. Sometimes people are looking to learn something brand new, sometimes they’re looking to compare their options, and other times they’re ready to act. While Google search is a great tool for all these kinds of searchers, most advertisers want to reach people most ready to convert.

While a quality landing page can help increase your conversion rate, sometimes they’re just an extra step between the user and connecting with your business. For that reason, Google’s introduced several ways to convert a user directly on the SERP. Call extensions and Call ads allow a user to call your business directly from their mobile phone, for instance.

Yesterday, Google introduced a revolutionary new way to convert directly on the SERP. Advertisers can now create Lead Form Extensions and choose to send their traffic from their ad’s headline directly to a lead form on the Google SER, rather than a landing page. Best of all, if the searcher is signed into their Google account, the form will already be pre-populated with their contact details and they can convert with one click!

What are Google Lead Form Ad Extensions?

Google Ads first introduced Lead Form extensions in early 2019. Like other ad extensions, Lead Form Extensions could potentially show beneath your search ad and allowed users a new way to engage with your ad, by opening a lead form with a user’s contact information already filled out. Advertisers were quick to start using Lead Form Extensions ecstatic to see some incremental leads from their search ads.

Yesterday’s announcement allows advertisers a new way to leverage their lead form extensions. Instead of showing their lead form extension beneath their ads, this update allows users to have their ad’s headline serve their lead form instead. Now advertisers don’t need to send traffic to their website at all until a user completes their lead form!

There’s no additional cost for using lead form extensions, advertisers are only charged according to their CPC bid on Google.

2 Ways to Use Google Lead Form Ad Extensions

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Suds and Search 49 | Jim Ziegler, founder of Ziegler SuperSystems

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My guest on this episode of Suds & Search is Jim Ziegler, owner of the Ziegler SuperSystems and a legend in the automotive industry. For over 44 years, Jim has contributed his talents as a writer, magazine columnist, professional speaker, and turnaround artist at some of the biggest auto dealerships in the United States.

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How to Come Up with Blog Ideas: Four Easy Tips for Business Owners

In order to keep your site relevant for your money-making search terms, you need a blog, and you need to publish high-quality content on your blog regularly.

How to come up with blog ideas, though? Where to start?

In this post, I offer a few no-nonsense ways business owners can come up with great blog ideas by leveraging their experience and expertise in their field—no intimidating “keyword research,” “discovery,” or “competitor analysis” process required.

(For my purposes here, by “business owners,” I mean those without SEO training.)

If successful, the tips from this post won’t feed you blog ideas or topics themselves. Rather, they’ll equip you with a reproducible process to ideate stellar content ideas or topics for months (and years) to come. If you take advantage of the tips I provide, you’ll become your business’ very own brainy content strategist—and very likely a richer entrepreneur.

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The 12 best SEO-themed Valentine’s Day cards

In this week’s episode, I take a break from digital marketing tips for another holiday-themed episode… This time, I share the top 12 SEO-themed Valentine’s Day cards. I scoured the ‘net to find the funniest cards with SEO references – hopefully you’ll get a few laughs like we did!

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