SEO, PPC, and Excel Tutorials and Blogs

24Jul 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

Why You Should Monitor Syndicated Search Partner Traffic for Bing Ads

ppc

One of the biggest benefits to using Bing Ads is the ability to have full control on their syndicated search traffic for your website. That means that you are able to exclude partners that are not right for your business and deliver that great ROI that you are looking for. Google only gives the option to opt in, so you are stuck with participating or not participating with whatever partners they have. Also, Google will not share who their partners are, so you are really in a cloud when it comes to this. With this syndicated feature, Bing is constantly updating their list of partners based on new search deals, so sometimes a bad apple for your account might slip in even though you excluded a list of partners a…

04Jul 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

How to Create an XML Sitemap in WordPress

seo

Sitemaps act as a guide for search engine bots to understand what content lives on your site and where they can find it. They come in two forms which include XML and an HTML version. The XML version looks like code that is followed by search engine bots. The HTML version (which is optional) is more of a guide for users who want to know what's on your site. In this blog post, I will show some WordPress sitemap plugins, how to create an XML sitemap without a plugin, why you should update your robots file afterwards, and how to let Google and Bing know about the file that you created. WordPress Sitemap Plugins There are many plugins that are sitemap generators for WordPress. One of the best SEO…

15Jun 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

What Do SEO’s Do on an Average Day?

insight

Depending on the size of your team, you might find that some things apply and don’t apply to your average day. I am going to explain in present day today what I do at my full-time job working in SEO and what I do for my own website. Some of the things include pulling traffic reports, keyword reports, checking on the health of the site both in Google and Bing, reading up on search changes, and so much more! Obviously there are other things that come up during the day that need immediate attention, but this is the basic blueprint. Here is what I work on for a day-to-day and a weekly basis. If you are interested in getting help for your site, I recommend checking out the SEO services…

10Jun 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

Ten Minute Check for Daily SEO Success

seo

Running a successful SEO account begins with the basics. No matter what your fulltime role is, you can carve out 10 minutes each morning to check over things to make sure you are set up for success for search engine optimization. This blog post will go over some quick checks you can do on your account that will give you tremendous insight. If you are looking for a further review, I offer SEO Audit services where I go deeper into issues on your site and present the solution to fix them to give you the best success with search engine optimization. View the Code Whatever browser you use, you can right-click anywhere on the page and look for the view source section. This is something that I do on a…

09Jun 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

How to Freeze Panes

Excel

Working with large amounts of data can cause nightmares since you are constantly scrolling up and down to see what row you are referring to. Things can get even more complicated if you need to reference a date at the top of the document with a reference on a column. Luckily in Excel, we can lock in place these columns and rows to make data viewing much easier. This blog post will go over how to freeze panes in excel, how to freeze rows, and how to freeze columns easily, and finally how to unfreeze everything. One of the best parts of excel is that these changes will pick up when you open the saved document on any device. Let's begin. How to Freeze Rows in Excel Let's say you…

07Jun 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

How to Swap Columns with Transpose

Excel

Everyone looks at data in differently. Some people like having their dates (or names of people) at the top of the document. Others like the dates and the names of people to be on the left hand side. I fall into the latter when it comes to analyzing trends. My goal is to swap the columns at the top of the excel document with the axis of data points on the left hand side which are my KPI's. In this blog post, I am going to show how to transpose this data in excel and how to move columns and rows in excel with a click of a button. All of this can be completed in less than 30 seconds. Let's get started. Step 1: Copy the Data Within the…

22May 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

google trends local seo keyword research tool

seo

Performing local seo keyword research can seem really tough. You might have a niche field in a place where you wonder if anyone is even looking for your services that you give. You might even have a shop, but you are lost on what to blog about in your area that can attract foot and site traffic. I'm here to show how you should use Google Trends for your research and dominate in local SEO! In this blog post, I am going to show how a local bicycle shop that is located in Massachusetts can use Google Trends for their local SEO keyword research. Let's begin. What is Google Search Trends Google trends is a website that takes social trends from the world and aggregates it based on popularity, search…

20Apr 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

Microsoft Groove Music Guide

fun

In an age where music streaming services tend to be the same, you might ask yourself why another service might be worth exploring? This guide will shed light on a relatively unknown music service that might answer your needs compared to another service. This guide will explain what Microsoft Groove music is, what devices it works on, what are the unique advantages and disadvantages this service has, how to get the subscription for free, and if it is ultimately is worth switching too. What is Groove Music? Microsoft Groove is a music streaming service owned by Microsoft. It has had a long history of name changes like Xbox Music and Zune, but now it has been re branded to be called Groove with the Windows 10 launch. How…

16Apr 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

Ultimate Guide to Edge Extensions

fun

Microsoft Edge is a new browser that can be found on Windows 10 computers. Launched on July 29th, 2015, Edge has seen a pretty low uptick in usage by users. When launched, the browser did not have any extensions and was lacking some other key functions that rivals like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and others had. With many updates since 2015, Microsoft Edge has some features like extensions and plugins that can help you stay productive while you browse the web. Here is the ultimate guide to finding, downloading, and using Microsoft Edge with extensions. How to install and Use Extensions for Microsoft Edge Step 1: Launch Edge If you are unfamiliar with where to find this browser, you should see a blue letter "e" at the bottom of your…

31Mar 2017 by Greg Kristan No Comments

How to Remove Tracking URL’s in Excel

Excel

Tracking URL's are special characters added to paid search campaigns, social media campaigns, email campaigns, and pretty much anything that you want to specifically track for marketing purposes. While great for separating out channels by the source, you will quickly realize the nightmare it creates when you want to check your data. In this blog post, I am going to show how to update your excel formula to remove everything after a special character like a question mark. You want to do this so you are presented with a clean URL (without the tracking), so you can put everything into a Pivot Table and review the data. Here are the steps below. Excel Steps to Remove Text After a Specific Character Here is an example of exporting the top landing pages with the…