I tend to travel to Texas 6 to 8 times a year for client work. Besides the wonderful nature of Dallas and Austin, I love their BBQ. The first time I had Rudy's BBQ and they served it with sliced white bread, I had to have a strange look on my face. When I tasted moist brisket for the first time, I was in trouble. Anyone that knows me well, knows I am passionate about food.
On every visit to Texas I have multiple servings of Texas brisket, and at least one visit to Rudy's. I have even brought back pounds of it fresh carved and wrapped up for travel on the plane back to South Florida. Every time I do it, there are some seriously proud Texans in the security line seeing me bring back one of their delicacies to my home.
Sadly, it goes quickly. I started getting requests to bring extra back on my last few trips for friends!
I discovered Rudy's Anywhere about a year ago. I shipped two briskets to my door. The first one was disappointing. In retrospect I think my Dad did not follow the directions properly.
Yesterday for my son's 4th birthday we heated up the second one. IT WAS AMAZING. I was 95% as good as getting it fresh. I heated it in a sealed tin with a cup for water for 2 1/2 hours at 300 degrees. I watched the (very professional) Rudy's Anywhere YouTube Video several times to get the carving technique down pat.
I am going to be ordering monthly now!
Get your's here: http://www.rudysbbq.com/store/
Monday, March 25, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
It's Spring - Time to Clean out Your PPC Campaigns!
Have you kept up with your PPC campaign or is it overloaded with keywords, targeting, and promotions you don't use anymore? PPC campaigns benefit from the same attention we give our closets when it's time to replace our old belongings with something new and fresh. Especially now with the roll out of the new enhanced campaigns, your existing AdWords PPC account may need some spring cleaning. Here are three quick tips to help you brighten up your PPC account:
1. Upgrade to Enhanced Campaigns
2. Get Rid of Unwanted Keywords
Sometimes we get carried away and add keywords then lose track of what is actually working. Take a look at your keyword list and delete or pause keywords with low quality scores and that are expensive and not generating any conversions. Use the search query tool to find new, relevant and high traffic keywords.
3. Test New Ad Copy
Recycle your current ad copies and replace them with fresh content, new promotions or call to action. Enhanced campaigns do not allow phone numbers in the ad copy, therefore, make sure you take any phone numbers out and create a call extension instead.
Keeping your account clean will improve your ad rank, increase click-through rates and help you maintain brand awareness. Remove the clutter and re-energize your campaigns!
Good luck!
Sara
1. Upgrade to Enhanced Campaigns
If your current account is eligible to upgrade, make the transition now and get adjusted to the new features. The set up is fast and simple. AdWords will guide you through each step once you get started. Enhanced campaigns will help you reach your audience with the right ads, based on their location and device type without having to build out and manage several separate campaigns. Google will upgrade all accounts by mid-2013.
2. Get Rid of Unwanted Keywords
Sometimes we get carried away and add keywords then lose track of what is actually working. Take a look at your keyword list and delete or pause keywords with low quality scores and that are expensive and not generating any conversions. Use the search query tool to find new, relevant and high traffic keywords.
3. Test New Ad Copy
Recycle your current ad copies and replace them with fresh content, new promotions or call to action. Enhanced campaigns do not allow phone numbers in the ad copy, therefore, make sure you take any phone numbers out and create a call extension instead.
Keeping your account clean will improve your ad rank, increase click-through rates and help you maintain brand awareness. Remove the clutter and re-energize your campaigns!
Good luck!
Sara
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Google Panda and Penguin Are Coming...Are You Ready?
At the end of this week or by early next week, all signs point to another Google Panda update hitting the Google search results pages. Not far behind will be another Penguin update, so it is important that you get your website up to par for these Google updates that can be seriously detrimental if you choose not to abide by them.
The goal of both of these updates within Google are to provide the user with quality results. This means weeding out the spam pages and raising the search location for quality pages, pages that actually contain content that is fresh and is related to the search query. Google Panda had a previous update at the end of January, and 1.2 percent of English search queries were affected. See some crazy traffic fluctuations on your site in the next few days, and you may be one of the site's on Panda's hit list.
Panda-proof your website TODAY:
Get rid of duplicate content. Large levels of duplicate content (that appear intentional rather than a few republished works), and Google has a specific set of guidelines that they prefer for cleaning up duplicate content, which you can read here and subsequently implement. Remember to keep duplicate content in the back of your mind when you make future changes to your site, as it is an issue Google takes seriously.
Take away the low quality content. Content that is specifically on your site to fill space and lacks any actual value or quality should be removed. While this may seem obvious, it can be hard deciphering what is "low quality" to Google when it may not be low quality in your eyes. Look at your analytics and see what pages aren't getting clicks, where users aren't spending any time, and read over Google's take on the issue and how to fix it here.
Develop high quality content. In keeping with cleaning out the bad content, your quality content may need a little work as well. Beef up existing content with new statistics, helpful links, add images, and make existing content appear more thorough and useful for a Google searcher. Remember, original content is ideal, and lots of it. Read more here. Develop high-quality content and make it the rule for your site. When adding content, ensure it meets these criteria: It offers value, it's something you want to share, and you can link it as an informative resource.
As for Penguin, the date of this update is still a mystery. However Matt Cutts, Google's engineer extraordinaire, did say that there will be a new generation of Penguin, an algorithm also designed to weed the junk out of the Google search results and penalize websites with suspicious and unnatural link portfolios. As you probably know, there are still plenty of sites like this lurking the web and hogging the search results, so this follow up Penguin attack could help level the playing field. The update will be a big one, as Cutts himself referred to it as "significant and one of the most talked about Google algorithm updates this year."
Remember, the Panda and Penguin are both coming, so it's best to be prepared than take your chances. Be sure to reach out to your friends at Tandem Interactive if you have questions or need pointers.
The goal of both of these updates within Google are to provide the user with quality results. This means weeding out the spam pages and raising the search location for quality pages, pages that actually contain content that is fresh and is related to the search query. Google Panda had a previous update at the end of January, and 1.2 percent of English search queries were affected. See some crazy traffic fluctuations on your site in the next few days, and you may be one of the site's on Panda's hit list.
Panda-proof your website TODAY:
Get rid of duplicate content. Large levels of duplicate content (that appear intentional rather than a few republished works), and Google has a specific set of guidelines that they prefer for cleaning up duplicate content, which you can read here and subsequently implement. Remember to keep duplicate content in the back of your mind when you make future changes to your site, as it is an issue Google takes seriously.
Take away the low quality content. Content that is specifically on your site to fill space and lacks any actual value or quality should be removed. While this may seem obvious, it can be hard deciphering what is "low quality" to Google when it may not be low quality in your eyes. Look at your analytics and see what pages aren't getting clicks, where users aren't spending any time, and read over Google's take on the issue and how to fix it here.
Develop high quality content. In keeping with cleaning out the bad content, your quality content may need a little work as well. Beef up existing content with new statistics, helpful links, add images, and make existing content appear more thorough and useful for a Google searcher. Remember, original content is ideal, and lots of it. Read more here. Develop high-quality content and make it the rule for your site. When adding content, ensure it meets these criteria: It offers value, it's something you want to share, and you can link it as an informative resource.
As for Penguin, the date of this update is still a mystery. However Matt Cutts, Google's engineer extraordinaire, did say that there will be a new generation of Penguin, an algorithm also designed to weed the junk out of the Google search results and penalize websites with suspicious and unnatural link portfolios. As you probably know, there are still plenty of sites like this lurking the web and hogging the search results, so this follow up Penguin attack could help level the playing field. The update will be a big one, as Cutts himself referred to it as "significant and one of the most talked about Google algorithm updates this year."
Remember, the Panda and Penguin are both coming, so it's best to be prepared than take your chances. Be sure to reach out to your friends at Tandem Interactive if you have questions or need pointers.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Google Furthers the Multi Device Connections and Attribtuion
Recently, I noticed on my Samsung Note II (Best phone or phablet EVER) that in my search box, there were items in my history that I did not search for on the phone. This peaked my interest and I quickly realized they were searches that I did on my desktop earlier. I was logged into Google on my Desktop and on my phone through Android.
This is significant because Google is connecting the dots between devices that we regularly use. On the analytics side of things, we know that multi device attribution is coming. Traditional cookies are the big hurdle to get over.
Thinking back to my early post on Google+, http://www.pubcon.com/why-is-google-plus-relevant-for-all-businesses, this is another feather in the hat for Google+. If we get to an always logged into Google world, there will be other ways to track Web usage by a person regardless of the device they are on. The screenshot above is only a glimpse into how connected (and trackable) our future is!
Thinking back to my early post on Google+, http://www.pubcon.com/why-is-google-plus-relevant-for-all-businesses, this is another feather in the hat for Google+. If we get to an always logged into Google world, there will be other ways to track Web usage by a person regardless of the device they are on. The screenshot above is only a glimpse into how connected (and trackable) our future is!
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