LinkedIn Introduces a New Way for Pages to Generate Leads via @MattGSouthern

LinkedIn is rolling out new tools to help pages drive leads and measure the results. The company says its listening to feedback from page admins and introducing custom call-to-action (CTA) buttons.

“As a Page Admin, we’ve heard that you want the ability to customize the way you engage with your Page followers and visitors. Beyond the primary “Follow” button, we’ve now added the ability to select a custom CTA button for your Page.”

Custom CTA buttons can be set up to drive leads in five different ways. Options include:

• Contact us
• Learn more
• Register
• Sign up
• Visit website

In order to measure results from the CTA buttons, page admins will have access to new analytics dashboards. Admins can find the click-through analytics for their custom CTA buttons either in the page admin home dashboard or at the top of the visitor analytics tab.

Other new features

In addition to CTA buttons and new analytics, LinkedIn is bringing two more features to pages.

Communities hashtags

You can now associate your page with relevant hashtags using the communities feature in the admin center. This will give you the ability to engage directly with LinkedIn members through the hashtag content feed.

Mobile admin editing

Admins can now update key page details and edit already published posts their your mobile device. Communities hashtags and custom CTA buttons are available on desktop only. For more information on how to get the most out of content published to your LinkedIn page, see our coverage of its recent algorithm update.

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/linkedin-introduces-a-new-way-for-pages-to-generate-leads-via-mattgsouthern/

What do you do if Google My Business doesn’t understand your business?

Without question, Google My Business (GMB) is the lifeblood of most local organizations that want to be found online. According to the most recent Moz Local Search Ranking Factors report, your GMB page is the biggest local ranking factor. It also functions as a website now, with rich content, visuals and customer ratings/reviews that make it possible for people to learn more about you without leaving Google’s search results. At the same time, Google My Business is not a perfect service. It often struggles with businesses that don’t fall into the two most common business types: storefronts where customers come to a permanent business location and service area businesses, where the business comes to the customer. A common case in point: pop-up shops, which are growing in number. Pop-up shops have taken hold for several reasons. They often provide customers surprise-and-delight experiences that are not always easy to pull off in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. They make it possible for businesses to sell products and services without needing to pay expensive operational costs associated with running a permanent, brick-and-mortar store. Because they are mobile by nature, businesses can customize products literally to appeal to specific neighborhoods. Pop-up stores are legitimate businesses, and yet Google has no easy way to help you find them. There are a couple of issues that prevent Google from being able to provide an accurate GMB page:

• The first has to do with claiming the listing. For most business types, Google needs to send the business a postcard with a pin number on it to verify that the business exists at a location. But pop-up stores often lack a permanent location for Google to send the cards and may only be at a location for a week or less, not giving enough time for the postcard to even reach the temporary address.

• The second issue also has to do with verification but is specific to how a pop-up store manages a listing. For instance, what happens if you create a GMB listing and then move from one location to another? Does that old location get marked as permanently closed? If so, the classification implies the business is out of business instead of moved. Again, the postcard verification as the primary means of validating a business causes trouble here.

Because of this quirk in Google’s approach, pop-up stores are generally beyond the reach of GMB. Their customers need to find them via word of mouth or via social sites such as Facebook, where they may operate pages without a verified location. In the above scenario, everyone loses. The store loses potential customers. Google loses traffic to social sites such as Facebook. And customers lose because it becomes harder to find a store that might interest them. Because Google Maps and Waze draw data from GMB listings, those popular apps cannot offer users accurate directions to these types of stores. Let’s look at another interesting case from i9 Sports (a client of my company). The sports franchise pays relatively low fees in exchange for the right to operate leagues, camps and clinics in different communities. One of the ways they keep fees low is by eliminating the need for a franchise to buy any real estate. Instead, franchisees operate out of parks and fields owned by someone else — often via park districts. The beauty of the model is that it capitalizes on surplus inventory: if a local park or playing field is unused, as they often are, why not conduct a soccer league or baseball clinic there? Why build another facility when there is unused space available? Sounds like an efficient way to do business, right? In fact, the sports franchise has been growing steadily for years, with more than 2 million registrations in communities from New York to Hawaii. But if you Google “i9 Sports near me,” you may have a less than ideal set of search results. That’s because the franchises have a difficult time creating GMB profiles. The issue is that the very attributes that make it incredibly efficient and cost-effective – the lack of a permanent location – work against the organization in Google’s world. There’s no physical location for Google to work with in order to verify the existence so the organization is lumped together with service area businesses (e.g., plumbers and contractors) where the business goes to the client’s location. Google has good reason to verify businesses the way it does. Service area businesses require careful vetting, and it serves the interests of Google and a business’s customers for Google to ensure that they are contactable, reviewable and verified. Checks and balances need to be in place. At the same time, progressive business models fall through the cracks. Fortunately, Google has been helpful in working with us to find a solution, which shows that Google is flexible and willing to evolve. As more companies adopt business models shorn of permanent locations, the bigger question is how will Google adapt over time? If you are one such business, you may need an advocate to work with Google – but it’s worth trying. Google, to its credit, watches for patterns of behavior among its users and adapts. It behooves Google to provide the best experience to its users, and if more of its users are struggling to find businesses, Google will adapt rather than lose them to another ecosystem.

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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About The Author

Adam Dorfman is a technology and digital marketing professional with more than 20 years of experience. His expertise spans all aspects of product development as well as scaling product and engineering teams. He has been in the SEO and Local SEO space since 1999. In 2006, Adam co-founded SIM Partners and helped create a business that made it possible for companies to automate the process of attracting and growing customer relationships across multiple locations. Adam is currently director of product at Reputation where he and his teams are integrating location-based marketing with reputation management and customer experience. Adam contributes regularly to publications such as Search Engine Land, participates in Moz’s Local Search Ranking Factors survey, and regularly speaks at search marketing events such as Search Marketing Expo (SMX) West and State of Search as well as industry-specific events such as HIMSS. Follow him on Twitter @phixed.

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/what-do-you-do-if-google-my-business-doesnt-understand-your-business/

Justice Thomas weighs in on ‘dismemberment abortions’ and the undue burden standard

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U.S. Supreme Court

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 28, 2019, 1:56 pm CDT

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence “has spiraled out of control” and has to be reevaluated. “We cannot continue blinking the reality of what this court has wrought,” he wrote. Thomas expressed his views in a concurrence to the Supreme Court’s refusal to review an Alabama law barring “dismemberment abortions” in 2016. A federal appeals court had struck down the law banning dilation and evacuation abortions, the most common second-trimester abortion method. Although Thomas thought that the Alabama law is constitutional, he said the case did not present an opportunity to address the Supreme Court’s “demonstrably erroneous” undue burden standard for evaluating laws that regulate abortions. Thomas said the abortion procedure banned by the Alabama law amounts to “dismembering a child alive.” “The notion that anything in the Constitution prevents states from passing laws prohibiting the dismembering of a living child is implausible,” he said. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta reluctantly struck down the law last year in a decision that described the procedure in graphic terms. Thomas included the description in his concurrence. “In this type of abortion, the unborn child dies the way anyone else would if dismembered alive,” the 11th Circuit said in an opinion by Judge Ed Carnes. “It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb. It can, however, survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off. … At the end of the abortion—after the larger pieces of the unborn child have been torn off with forceps and the remaining pieces sucked out with a vacuum—the abortionist is left with a tray full of pieces.” See also: ABAJournal.com: “Founder of online abortion-pill service says she won’t turn anyone away, despite FDA warning” ABAJournal.com: “Abortion law prompts more than 200 ABA members to protest plan to hold 2021 meeting in Atlanta” ABA Journal: “Dutch doctor’s abortion-drug prescription service faces legal landmines” ABAJournal.com: “ABA opposes proposal to ban abortion counseling and referrals at clinics that receive federal funds” ABAJournal.com: “Judge blocks closing of state’s only abortion clinic with TRO”

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/justice-thomas-weighs-in-on-dismemberment-abortions-and-the-undue-burden-standard/

Supreme Court to review rescission of DACA program for immigrants brought to US as children

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U.S. Supreme Court

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 28, 2019, 11:51 am CDT

Image from Shutterstock.com.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider challenges to President Donald Trump’s decision to phase out a program that deferred deportation for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. The court granted review in three consolidated cases. SCOTUSblog, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico and CNN have coverage. The Trump administration announced a winding down of the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in September 2017. Known as DACA, the program deferred deportation and granted work permits to people who were brought to the United States illegally as minors. Immigrants in the program had to have clean criminal records and meet other educational or military service requirements. President Barack Obama had created DACA. The Trump administration argued that DACA was unlawful because it sanctioned an ongoing violation of federal immigration law. The issues before the court are whether the decision to end DACA is subject to judicial review and, if so, whether the decision to end the program was legal, according to SCOTUSblog. The Trump administration had sought Supreme Court review before rulings by any federal appeals courts. Days after the administration sought cert, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco affirmed an injunction barring the phasing out of DACA. The court said in its November decision that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the decision to end DACA was arbitrary and capricious. In May, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Richmond, Virginia, also found that rescission of the program was arbitrary and capricious. The Supreme Court recently denied a request to expedite review of that decision, according to the Washington Post. The cases before the high court are Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, Trump v. NAACP and McAleenan v. Vidal. The SCOTUSblog case pages are here, here and here. The cert petitions had been under consideration for months. SCOTUSblog speculated that the court wanted to hold off until after decisions on administrative law cases, such as the case challenging the decision to add a citizenship question to the census. On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld a judge’s decision to ask the Commerce Department to provide a better explanation for its decision to add the question.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/supreme-court-to-review-rescission-of-daca-program-for-immigrants-brought-to-us-as-children/

Woman is jailed after she took her estranged husband’s guns and gave them to police

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Criminal Justice

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 27, 2019, 1:57 pm CDT

Courtney Taylor Irby, 32. Photo from the Polk County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office.

A Florida woman was arrested and jailed on a burglary charge after allegedly entering her estranged husband’s home to retrieve his guns and turning the weapons over to police. Police in Lakeland, Florida, charged Courtney Taylor Irby, 32, with armed burglary and grand theft of a firearm, report NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Lakeland Ledger and Click Orlando. She was charged with armed burglary because she carried the weapons out of the home. Taylor Irby, who goes by her middle name, spent six days in jail before being released on bond, according to the Lakeland Ledger. (Some stories say Taylor Irby was jailed for five days.) Taylor Irby entered the home of her estranged husband, Joseph Irby, 35, after a judge said he could not possess any guns or weapons as a condition of pretrial release. He was facing a domestic violence charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. The charge against Joseph Irby stems from a June 14 incident in which Taylor irby said her husband used his vehicle to ram her car and run it off the road. The couple had been in a divorce court proceeding that day. In a June 15 bond hearing for Joseph Irby, Taylor Irby told the judge her husband is mentally unstable and armed, according to the New York Times account. “I am so fearful,” she said. Later that day, while Joseph Irby was still in jail on the domestic violence charge, Taylor Irby allegedly went inside her estranged husband’s home to get his pistol and rifle. Taylor Irby told a Lakeland police officer that she retrieved and turned in the guns because her husband wasn’t going to do it, according to the officer who arrested her. State Attorney Brian Haas of Florida’s 10th Judicial Circuit said in a statement Tuesday that he hadn’t made a decision on whether to pursue charges against Taylor Irby. Haas said his office was “awaiting various reports, statements and other documentation.” Taylor Irby’s lawyer, Lawrence Shearer, argued that his client did not commit theft or burglary because her estranged husband wasn’t legally entitled to keep the weapons, according to the Washington Post. Joseph Irby’s lawyer, Robert Peddy, questioned whether Taylor Irby feared for her life and noted she was seeking sole custody of the children in divorce proceedings, according to the New York Times. He suggested her motivation was “custodial and financial.” In an interview with the Lakeland Ledger, Peddy said Taylor Irby wasn’t credible and was making “embellished” claims.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/woman-is-jailed-after-she-took-her-estranged-husbands-guns-and-gave-them-to-police/

Wayback Machine Now Shows When a Page Was Updated and What Changed via @MattGSouthern

The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has a new tool that shows the exact date a page was changed what was changed on it. ‘Changes‘ is currently in beta, so the experience isn’t perfect at the moment but it’s easy to see the potential in it. Previously, the only way to look back on when and how a page was changed was to manually click through and view every screenshot in the Wayback Machine. Now, you can enter a URL and the Wayback Machine will analyze all the screenshots it has taken since the page was published. Then it displays a color-coded calendar which shows the degree of relative change from one archive to another. It ranges from grey (low degree of change) to blue (high degree of change). From there you can select two different dates and compare the changes with screenshots that are highlighted in blue and yellow. Here’s an example of what the Search Engine Journal homepage looked like three years apart. Yellow indicates content deletion and blue indicates content addition. As you can see, the tool indicates written content changes as well as changes in visual elements like the header and navigation buttons. There’s a great deal of potential in this tool for SEOs when it comes to diagnosing issues. For example, if there’s a gradual rise or decline in rankings for a page you can see how it has changed over a period of time. Alternatively, if the page never changed since it was published, you can find out immediately rather than manually comparing different screenshots. Personally, I can think of many times in the past when I would have used this tool if it was available.

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/wayback-machine-now-shows-when-a-page-was-updated-and-what-changed-via-mattgsouthern/

LinkedIn Changes its Algorithm to Surface More Personalized Content via @MattGSouthern

LinkedIn is changing how posts are ranked in users’ feeds, tailoring content to their professional interests. Rather than giving more weight to viral content, posts will show up higher in the feed if a user is more likely to join in the conversation. LinkedIn’s algorithm follows the company’s new framework: “People You Know, Talking About Things You Care About.” The algorithm determines who a user knows by looking at the following signals:

• Their connections
• Who they’ve interacted with directly
• Who they’ve worked with
• Who they have shared interests and experiences with (based on information in their profile)

The LinkedIn feed may also surface posts from people a user is not connected with if they’re relevant to the user’s professional interests. That’s determined by signals such as groups a user belongs to, as well as hashtags, people, and pages they follow. Posts will get an even greater boost if they’re from a connection who uses a relevant hashtag. LinkedIn sums up its algorithm changes:

“To summarize, your LinkedIn feed is made up of the conversations happening across your professional communities: among connections; in the groups you’ve joined; and the people, pages, and hashtags that you follow.”

In order to optimize posts for LinkedIn’s new algorithm, the company offers the following tips:

• Post things that encourage a response.
• Use the best post type for the topic.
• Use @mentions to tag people who are likely to respond.
• Encourage conversation by responding to comments.
• Post about niche topics.
• Use hashtags, but no more than three.

In the end, the main focus seems to be on driving conversation. So if your posts are getting people talking then you’re on the right track.

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/linkedin-changes-its-algorithm-to-surface-more-personalized-content-via-mattgsouthern/

Law firm awarded $900K in suit contending departing lawyers took confidential files

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Law Firms

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 28, 2019, 12:40 pm CDT

Image from Shutterstock.com.

A former Boston law firm has been awarded $900,000 in its suit claiming that departing lawyers breached their duty of loyalty when they took the firm’s electronic database of files and misused confidential information. Jurors found for the Governo Law Firm last week in its suit against six departing lawyers and the firm they formed, CMBG3 Law, according to Law360 and a press release by the Governo firm. Both firms specialized in the defense of asbestos cases. With interest and costs, the total is nearly $1.2 million. Lawyers and staff members at the Governo firm have moved to Duggan Buell & Rufo, according to the Governo firm’s website. The Governo firm and name partner David Governo claimed in the lawsuit that the departing lawyers took proprietary databases that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build. The departing lawyers had claimed that the databases belonged to the firm’s clients, who were billed for work on the data. Governo had said the lawyers entered negotiations to buy the law firm before abruptly ending discussions and taking the databases. According to Governo, the databases contained information about client billing rates, bankruptcy filings, client correspondence, literature on asbestos litigation, expert witness backgrounds and key court rulings. According to Law360, jurors found that the defendants had converted files and information that belonged to the Governo firm, and that all but one defendant acted together to steal the electronic databases. “The jury also found that each individual defendant breached his or her duty of loyalty by misusing Governo’s confidential information,” according to the press release. Jurors did not find the defendants liable for misappropriation of trade secrets or unfair practices, however. Governo said in the press release that the verdict validates his decision to sue. “This has been a long haul, and often a difficult one,” he said.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/law-firm-awarded-900k-in-suit-contending-departing-lawyers-took-confidential-files/

Everything You Need to Know About Internal Link Building via @AndrewDennis33

In the SEO industry, when you hear the term “link building,” you probably assume the person is talking about external links or backlinks.

This makes sense. After all, backlinks from other websites are a strong signal to search engines and a driving force behind organic search rankings. But there is another type of link building that is also important: internal link building. These are the links you build on your website that point to other relevant pages on your site. While internal links aren’t necessarily what we think of first when we discuss link building, they are an integral part of successful SEO. They even play an important role in deliver-ing ROI from external link acquisition.

Directing Link Equity with Internal Links

The most significant benefit of internal links – in terms of SEO – is their ability to direct link equity throughout your website. External links bring equity and trust to your website, and specifically, to the page they point to. The page that is directly linked will benefit the most from a backlink, but through internal linking, you can pass along some of that equity to other pages. While the SEO value is slightly diminished the further you get away from the externally linked page, internal links can provide an option for growing the authority and trust of your lower-funnel, less linkable pages. While not impossible, it’s typically difficult to secure links to converting or “money pages” because these pages usually offer little value and cater to a small audience (those who are ready to buy your product). However, you can overcome this challenge and support organic visibility for these pages through internal links from your link-worthy pages. The best part of this strategy is you only need to build the one internal link and your converting page will continuously, and progressively, benefit from each new backlink you earn to your linkable asset. Just remember that internal links still need to be relevant. Your internal link should make sense contextually on the page you place it. Internal links are a great way to support new pages as well. Before you launch an external link acquisition campaign for a new page, search your site for other relevant pages and build some internal links to give your page an initial boost.

Use Internal Linking to Signal Your Most Important Pages

Internal links can also be leveraged to highlight your important pages. Site structure plays a key role in how search crawlers navigate and understand your website and they use internal links to measure which pages are the most important and most closely tied to your brand. The more internal links you point to a page, the more important search engine bots will think that page is. This can influence which keywords and phrases they will associate with your pages – when there are multiple pages that cover a similar topic, search engines will use internal links to decide which page is most important and should show in their search results. You want to make it easy for search crawlers to understand your site and which pages are most important to you, and internal link building can help them better identify your key pages.

Internal Links Help Visitors Navigate Your Site

Spiders aren’t the only ones trying to navigate your site – you can use internal link building to make it easier for human visitors to find the right pages. Not only will internal links boost the organic visibility of your converting pages, but they can also get actual people to those pages to convert. SEO benefits aside, internal link building is critical to ensuring you’re providing a solid UX and keeping visitors on your site. Consider the various entry points people have to your site and use internal links to map out a journey that moves them through your site. There should always be a next step or desired action for users – at least until they purchase or convert – and optimized internal linking will help them reach the next destination.

Internal Link Building Best Practices

There are many benefits of internal links, but what does internal link building look like in practice? To help you implement a successful internal link building campaign on your site, let’s walk through some of the best practices and common strategies for internal linking.

Use Link Tools

You may want to invest in some tools to help you assess your internal linking structure and guide future internal link building. Screaming Frog is a great tool for getting a better understanding of your top internally linked pages. Using Screaming Frog to crawl your website, you can filter by “Inlinks” to organize URLs by those with the most internal links. You can also use Screaming Frog to filter by pages that include a specific term, which is extremely useful for identifying internal link building opportunities. For example, if you are trying to build links to your page about internal link building, you can use Screaming Frog to find all pages that mention “internal links”. To do this, you would click Configuration, Custom, and then Search. This will bring up the Custom Search menu where you could enter your term (e.g., “internal links”). Then you just re-crawl your site and navigate over to the sidebar and scroll down to Custom, where you’ll see how many pages include your selected term. Clicking on ‘Custom’ will take you to a list of URLs that include the term, which can be easily exported to Excel. And voila, you now have a curated list of internal link building targets! Link tools (e.g., Majestic, Moz, Ahrefs) can also be useful as you plan internal link building. These tools will tell you which pages on your site have the most external backlinks, so you’ll know theoretically where your most powerful internal links could be built. You can also manually review pages on your site, as well as internally link based on customer journeys, without tools. However, investing in these tools can help you optimize your internal link structure to receive maximum benefit from your internal link building efforts.

Optimize Your Anchor Text

Another aspect of internal link building that should be considered is the anchor text. Traditionally, SEO professionals shun exact match anchor text because it can have a negative, manipulative effect with external link building. However, with internal links you want to be as clear and specific as possible about the page you’re linking to, making exact match anchor text ideal (with natural variation included). Furthermore, these links help search crawlers understand your site, so you want to use anchor text that is directly related to the content of the page being linked. Optimize internal link anchor text to ensure humans and bots understand where the link is pointing.

Don’t Overdo it with Internal Link Building

Internal links are valuable for multiple reasons, but that doesn’t mean you should internally link every page to one another. While there is no set number for the appropriate number of internal links on a given page, simply use your best judgment for what would be beneficial to someone reading the page. If there is an opportunity to place a relevant internal link that would benefit the reader by providing more information or leads them to a page that is the next logical step in their journey on your site, then place that link! Depending on the length of the given page, somewhere between five to 10 internal links typically makes sense – again, use your discretion and do what aligns with the best user experience.

Final Thoughts

Most people think of external links when they hear the term “link building.” However, internal link building is an integral part of successful SEO as well. Optimizing your internal link structure will help your site in terms of improved navigation, clearer content hierarchy, and boosted authority for pages that struggle to earn backlinks.

Summary

Timeframe: Monthly/ongoing – as new content is published; you need to account for internal links. Results detected: For fresh content, you could see results within a few days or weeks with internal links from your most popular pages. Average links sent per month: This number depends on how frequently you publish new pages. Tools needed:

• Screaming Frog (Optional)
• Majestic (Optional)
• Moz (Optional)
• Ahrefs (Optional)

Benefits of internal link building:

• What it is: Internal link building is the process of linking internally from one page on your website to another. Internal link building is a critical function of SEO and managing a high-functioning website.
• Why it’s valuable: Internal links provide a number of benefits, including:
  • Directing link equity throughout your site to support pages that can’t earn links otherwise.
  • Helping search engines better understand which pages are most important and which keywords are associated with them.
  • Guiding visitors through your site to help them reach a desired destination or action.

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Featured Image Credit: Paulo Bobita

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-internal-link-building-via-andrewdennis33/

1 of 2 judges shot and wounded in White Castle parking lot is charged in the altercation

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Judiciary

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 28, 2019, 4:19 pm CDT

Image from Shutterstock.com.

One of two Indiana judges who was shot and wounded in a White Castle parking lot in Indianapolis has been charged with battery in connection with the May 1 incident. Judge Andrew Adams of Clark County has been indicted along with two men previously identified as suspects in the altercation, Alfredo Vazquez and Brandon Kaiser, according to a Friday press release and the indictments. All three men are charged with several counts of misdemeanor and felony battery. Kaiser, who is accused of shooting both judges, is also charged with battery with a deadly weapon and carrying a handgun without a license. Adams is accused of hitting and wrestling with Vazquez and kicking Kaiser. Vazquez and Kaiser are accused of hitting and kicking the two judges. Grand jurors declined to charge the second judge, Bradley Jacobs of Clark County. Adams’ colon was damaged in the shooting, requiring him to wear a colostomy bag, according to Kaiser’s indictment. The shooting fractured Jacobs’ ribs and lacerated his liver, the indictment says.

Judges Andrew Adams and Bradley Jacobs.

The Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications filed an immediate request for Adams’ suspension, according to a press release. Indiana court rules require suspension with pay when judges are charged with felonies. Temporary judges have been appointed in Clark County to handle cases. The Indianapolis Star, the News and Tribune, and the Indiana Lawyer are among the publications with coverage. Police previously said the judges were shot in the early morning hours of May 1 after visiting several Indianapolis bars and restaurants. The judges were in Indianapolis to attend the Spring Judicial College, a three-day educational event sponsored by the Indiana Supreme Court. Hundreds of judges from across the state are attending the conference. Police had previously arrested Vazquez and Kaiser, but prosecutors declined to charge them on May 10 to allow for more investigation.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/1-of-2-judges-shot-and-wounded-in-white-castle-parking-lot-is-charged-in-the-altercation/

Today’s customer decision journey is so complex but AI can help

Myth: “The customer journey is not as complex as it’s made out to be.” One thing is for sure – the consumer decision journey is more complex than ever before. The average consumer now owns three to four devices and uses multiple online and offline channels throughout their shopping journeys. The game is changing as marketers turn to artificial intelligence, agencies and data to help them navigate new consumer behavior. Every marketer today needs to be addressing these challenges as the CDJ itself is disrupting the digital landscape. For instance, consumers are increasingly turning to mobile devices throughout their journey to gather coupons, compare prices and read about products. Nearly 60% of shoppers research products and prices via mobile while in store and 87% of shoppers think brands need to build a more seamless shopping experience. Consumers are also researching online and then converting in-store. In fact, according to a recent Harvard Business Review study, 73% of the shoppers studied used multiple channels throughout their journey. Consider these stats:

• 50% of shoppers expect to make a purchase online and pick up in-store.
• 71% of shoppers agree that it is important or very important to be able to view inventory information online for in-store products.
• 45% of shoppers in-store to be knowledgeable about online-only products.
• 87% of customers want a seamless experience and think brands need to put more effort into providing one.
• Nearly 60% of shoppers use their mobile phones to look up product information and prices in stores.

You can see from these stats, omnichannel is here to stay as consumers jump between devices and online/offline activity. To make things even more complicated, at any point, consumers could be on the verge of conversion on one device while receiving early-funnel messaging on another. Today’s marketers must embrace omnichannel fundamentals, such as offering in-store pick-up online and optimizing mobile campaigns for a variety of KPIs such as downloads and views.

The new CDJ takes shape

While early marketing efforts and attribution models (first-click/last-click/linear/time decay) tended to oversimplify the CDJ, that is certainly no longer the case. The new CDJ has evolved to look less like a straight line and more like an intergalactic star with more data points than a single person could count. For example, this is an actual representation of just one data set of recent search queries on Bing related to “enterprise cloud software.” When zooming in, one can see the myriad of keyword searches in color-coded clusters. AI is no longer an option, but a requirement for experiencing success with today’s CDJ. Here are some tips for creating hyper-personalized touchpoints in modern journeys:

• Leverage cloud platforms and share data across all departments for greater customer insights.
• Bring together first-party and third-party data signals to create holistic views of the customer.
• Partner with technology providers and advertising platforms that can analyze the impact of online advertising to offline conversions.
• Focus less on a path-to-purchase and more on an evolved path-to-identity.
• Make all touchpoints shoppable (Instagram/chatbots/local inventory ads).

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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About The Author

​Christi Olson is a Search Evangelist at Microsoft in Seattle, Washington. For over a decade Christi has been a student and practitioner of SEM. Prior to joining the Bing Ads team within Microsoft, Christi worked in marketing both in-house and at agencies at Point It, Expedia, Harry & David, and Microsoft (MSN, Bing, Windows). When she's not geeking out about search and digital marketing she can be found with her husband at ACUO crossfit and running races across the PacificNW, brewing and trying to find the perfect beer, and going for lots of walks with their two schnauzers and pug.

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/todays-customer-decision-journey-is-so-complex-but-ai-can-help/

Warrant generally isn’t needed to draw blood from unconscious person suspected of DUI, says SCOTUS

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U.S. Supreme Court

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 27, 2019, 2:58 pm CDT

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined with conservatives Thursday in a decision that allows police in most circumstances to obtain a blood draw from an unconscious motorist without getting a warrant. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the plurality opinion, joined by Breyer, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in the judgment. Alito said that police are “almost always” allowed to order a blood draw from an unconscious driver without a warrant when they have probable cause to think that the person was driving drunk. Alito said the blood draw is generally permitted under the “exigent circumstances” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s general requirement of a warrant. The exception allows warrantless searches to prevent the dissipation of evidence, which consists of the dissipation of blood alcohol from metabolic processes in drunken-driving cases. Thomas would have given police officers even more leeway with a ruling that no warrant is ever required when officers have probable cause to think that a driver is drunk. The case arose from drunken-driving charges filed in Wisconsin against a man named Gerald Mitchell. A police officer in Sheboygan had encountered Mitchell wandering near a lake after receiving a report about a man who climbed into a van and began driving despite appearing to be very drunk. A preliminary breath test was triple the legal limit in the state. Mitchell was too lethargic for a breath test when police took him to the station, so they took him to a hospital. By that time, Mitchell had lost consciousness and the blood draw was performed. Alito’s opinion gives Mitchell a chance on remand to try to show that this was an unusual case in which the exception did not apply. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch dissented because the court ruled based on the doctrine of exigent circumstances, rather than on the implied-consent issue before the court. He would have dismissed the case as “improvidently granted and waited for a case” on exigent circumstances. Justice Sonia Sotomayor also noted in her dissent that Wisconsin had not argued the case based on exigent circumstances. “Because the plurality needlessly casts aside the established protections of the warrant requirement in favor of a brand-new presumption of exigent circumstances that Wisconsin does not urge, that the state courts did not consider, and that contravenes this court’s precedent, I respectfully dissent,” she wrote. Sotomayor’s dissent was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. The case is Mitchell v. Wisconsin. Related article: ABAJournal.com: “Law allowing blood draw from unconscious motorist to be reviewed by Supreme Court”

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/warrant-generally-isnt-needed-to-draw-blood-from-unconscious-person-suspected-of-dui-says-scotus/

Millions of minor criminal cases in this state will be automatically wiped from public databases

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Privacy Law

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 28, 2019, 6:30 am CDT

Image from Shutterstock.com.

An automated computer process will begin sealing millions of criminal records from public databases Friday as a result of Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate law. The law is the first in the nation to automatically seal some criminal records using technology, report the Morning Call, the CLS Blog and a joint story by WHYY and the PennLive. The law applies to less serious, nonviolent crimes. An estimated 30 million cases are eligible for automatic sealing, according to the Morning Call and the CLS Blog. WHYY and PennLive say the number is 40 million. About 2.5 million cases will be sealed each month until the process is complete. The Clean Slate bill was signed into law a year ago with the aim of helping low-level offenders get jobs, housing, college admission and loans. People whose charges were dropped are eligible for automatic sealing after 60 days, according to WHYY and PennLive. People with low-level convictions are eligible if they avoid additional convictions for 10 years and complete court-ordered obligations. People who satisfy the 10-year requirement can have records sealed for summary convictions, which are the most minor kinds of offenses in Pennsylvania; and a second- or third-degree misdemeanor punishable by two years or less in prison. People convicted of first-degree misdemeanors don’t qualify for automatic sealing, but they can still ask a judge to seal their records, provided they remain free of convictions for 10 years. The sealed records won’t be destroyed, and police and judicial officers will still be able to see them. In addition, some cases won’t be sealed if vital information is missing from the database, the CLS Blog reports. In such cases, people should seek legal help. See also: ABAJournal.com: “How to help people with criminal records break barriers to employment” ABAJournal.com: “Civil rights commission calls to end ‘invisible’ punishments for those with criminal convictions”

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/millions-of-minor-criminal-cases-in-this-state-will-be-automatically-wiped-from-public-databases/

Few people seek legal solutions to their justice problems, worldwide survey finds

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Access to Justice

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 27, 2019, 12:01 pm CDT

Image from Shutterstock.com.

About half of people surveyed from around the world said they experienced a recent civil legal problem, but most did not turn to lawyers and courts. The study by the World Justice Project found that 49% of people experienced at least one legal problem in the past two years. Among the surveyed group, 29% sought any form of advice, and those who did preferred to turn to family or friends. Only 17% took their problem to an authority or third party to mediate or adjudicate their problem. Only 29% of those with legal problems recognized that their issue was legal in nature. Yet the legal problems had a big impact. Twenty-nine percent said they experienced physical or stress-related ill health as a result of the legal problem, while 23% said they lost their job or had to relocate. The survey, available here, draws on data from a general population poll of more than 100,000 people in 101 countries, including the United States, in 2017 and 2018. The survey found that the prevalence and severity of problems varies by country, but the most common problems relate to consumer issues, housing, and money and debt. Problems included disputes with landlords, neighbors, utilities, insurers and people providing professional services. Other problems included extortion from a gang or criminal organization, becoming homeless, and difficulty collecting money owed. In the United States, 66% of those surveyed had experienced a legal problem in the past two years. The most commonly reported legal problems concerned consumer issues (reported by 30%), housing (31%), and money and debt (36%). Thirty-three percent of those reporting legal problems in the United States were able to access help. Forty-nine percent sought advice from friends and family; 38% turned to a lawyer or professional advice service; and 15% got help from a court, government body or police. Sixty-eight percent said they felt the process followed to resolve the problem was fair. The World Justice Project describes itself as, an independent, multidisciplinary organization working to advance the rule of law worldwide. Elizabeth Andersen, WJP executive director, said in a press release that the findings are “a wake-up call to the legal profession and justice sector in rich and poor countries worldwide: Access to justice is a fundamental quality of life issue and our justice systems are failing people with often dire consequences.”

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/few-people-seek-legal-solutions-to-their-justice-problems-worldwide-survey-finds/

5 Tips for Improving Your Law Firm Marketing ROI

Like many law firms, you likely make significant investments in marketing campaigns to drive lead generation. In return, you expect higher client conversions and great marketing return on investment (ROI). Unfortunately, even if you’re able to acquire a large number of new leads, your intake process could be holding you back. To ensure you receive a high marketing ROI, you need to have the tools and resources to immediately capture every incoming lead and convert them into new cases. Below are five tips you can use to achieve this goal.

1. Hire Trained, Dedicated Intake Specialists

With one receptionist handling all your calls, you face a high potential for new leads to slip through the cracks. As they handle many competing tasks throughout their workdays, receptionists simply cannot dedicate enough time and attention to nurturing your leads. When people reach out to your law firm, they expect to receive an instant response and expert support or they will keep shopping around until they do. You can keep them engaged with your law firm by hiring trained intake specialists. Their ability to nurture your leads in a professional and efficient way will help boost your marketing ROI across the board.

2. Implement Overflow and After-Hours Support

When you run marketing campaigns that generate a high amount of calls, your onsite team may struggle to keep up. Furthermore, as soon as they are off the clock, the calls hit your voicemail – and your leads will continue calling other firms to get the support they need. You can ensure that someone is always available to take the calls and nurture qualified leads by implementing overflow and after-hours support. A 24/7/365 live answering service can provide an instant response to every person who reaches out at all hours of the day and night.

3. Provide an Immediate Live Response

As people attempt to handle their legal troubles, they want to receive a live response that makes them feel at ease about the situation. When they receive prompt support from a dedicated team, they stop calling around to your competitors, looking for solutions. Effective legal call centers, like Alert, can give your clients a response within just 15 seconds or fewer than three rings. They also provide immediate live outbound calls in response to web and chat inquiries. The quick response times not only boost your chances for conversions, but also increase your marketing ROI.

4. Track Every Lead That Comes Your Way

Your client intake process must include lead tracking to ensure you give every prospective client the support they deserve and need. With lead tracking, you have the ability to follow your leads through every phase of the client journey - from first contact to conversion. The information can be used to help your intake team follow up at critical stages and schedule appointments as needed. Additionally, lead tracking can help you discover ways to improve your process and better care for the needs of your clients. By improving the overall client experience, you can increase conversions and thus boost your marketing ROI.

5. Use Convenient Contract Delivery Methods

The last, and often most critical, step in converting a lead into a client is the delivery and signing of the contract. To increase client conversions, you must aim to sign all qualified leads on the initial call - or you risk losing them to other firms. You can achieve this by employing convenient contract delivery methods. At Alert, for example, we can send fee agreements via text, email and mail carrier to get these documents signed quickly and easily. This takes the stress and hassle out of the equation and increases conversion rates across the board.

Improve Your Law Firm Marketing ROI Today

When you partner with a trusted legal intake partner like Alert Communications, you can trust that your law firm marketing ROI will improve significantly. As we streamline your intake process and implement tools and customized solutions, you can better capture, nurture and convert your leads into paying clients. And as you sign on more clients, you are guaranteed to generate more revenue and a higher ROI for your firm.

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/5-tips-for-improving-your-law-firm-marketing-roi/

The Marketing Funnel Isn’t Dead, We Just Understand It Better via @PPCKirk

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (stone/pebble/hard surface… outdated keyword variant joke, sorry) in the digital marketing world, you’ve likely run across at least one confident declaration in the past 12 months that the traditional marketing funnel concept is dead. Or dying. Or maybe maimed. Or at least, shot in the foot. The marketing funnel, for those unaware, is a concept created in 1898 to describe the “theoretical customer journey” and assist in targeting the right message to the right person at the right time. If, for instance, someone is just curious about your business you don’t want to “ask for their hand in marriage” by pushing them too hard for the sale, but rather “court them” by focusing on answering their questions and moving them to the next stage of the funnel. The funnel is typically seen as four categories (see below) that move from a broadening group of people (cold leads) to a smaller, more targeted and closer to purchase group of people (hot leads).

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

The logic is that people who have a desire for your product are fewer, and closer to purchase (from you or a competitor) than people who are just becoming aware of your product. Thus, you need to cast a wider net at the beginning to get in front of people, and then move people further “down the funnel” to get sales. Easy-peasy, right? Well, sort of. It has been somewhat widely accepted until we 21st Century chronological-snobbists began to scoff it away and proclaim that digital has changed everything inexorably and irrevocably. But has it? I want to examine whether the marketing funnel really is outdated and kaput because of the influence of digital. I then hope to prove that in fact, our understanding of the marketing funnel has simply evolved and we see its intricacies more clearly than ever before… while the core philosophy under-riding it all remains solid. I realize there is a lot of philosophy here, but I think that is core to providing a good foundation for our tactical advertising choices… so let’s dig into the arguments.

Legitimate Concerns with the Marketing Funnel

Enter the marketing funnel haters! LOL, I’m kidding. There are those who are questioning the validity of the traditional funnel, and for good reason. I used the idea of a maze last August for a #UtahDMC 2018 session I presented, noting the difficulty in accurate attribution, even in our digital age of tracking: The general consensus of the “funnel killers” I’ve run across is a good one: that is, user engagement with a business is far more complex now than it was in 1898. This is exceptionally true, and an important note – though I don’t think it undermines the funnel concept. My main concern with this line of thinking as it pertains to the funnel eventually comes out in some way similar to this: “People can interact with a business in multiple ways on multiple devices (many of those completely untraceable visits), so we need to think of a new way to describe this besides the marketing funnel, because obviously the user journey is more complex than it used to be.” What I take issue with, and the reason for this post, is the main assumption at the end of that made-up quote as it pertains to the funnel.

Two Core Unchanging Funnel Principles of Importance

I would ask: “is the user journey truly more complex in the broader customer journey categories themselves, or are we actually better seeing the inner workings of each broad category more clearly?” That is, should we rethink the entire structure, or is what we are seeing in its complexity simply a more advanced look into the mechanism of the funnel itself. I would posit, that nothing has changed in these primary principles of the marketing funnel and it is, in fact, the second option in my statement above. Here are the two core, unchanging principles that I see in the marketing funnel:

• There are stages of customer intent that change over time moving from less to more intentional in purchase behavior.
• These stages of customer purchase intent correlate with the number of people in those stages (i.e., more people in awareness, fewer closer to purchase action).

In this way, I think the best way of illustrating marketing today is an adaptation of a presentation I saw at HeroConf 2019 by my brilliant friend Aaron Levy of Tinuiti (the agency formerly known as EliteSEM). Levy described the concept as a “maze” similar to what I and others have in the past, but with the helpful inclusion of the “Top/Bottom” qualitative intent language to describe some sort of inter-categorical movement (of which is, if you remember, one of my core unchanging principles of the marketing funnel). Based on this updated concept, I think the following award-winning, hand-sketch graphic is the best attempt I can make at expanding on, and visualizing the marketing customer journey today and beyond: Yes, we have social which is new from 1898, and email, and paid search, and organic, and still in-store visits, and Amazon store visits and all the rest of the things that come with marketing today. But overall, these visits all still arguably follow those two core principles of the marketing funnel. What this means practically is that you can still identify unique audiences, where they are in the funnel, and then craft a message that meets them within that funnel. If you don’t see any correlation to the marketing funnel in your marketing, perhaps the weakness isn’t in the funnel itself – but in your business audience identification capabilities. If I had one actionable call-out I want you to get from this post, it would be this: Work on segmenting your audience targeting and efforts on identifying which of these four broader funnel categories you are going after here, and craft messaging/creative to support that.

In Summary

As we consider the concept of the marketing funnel, it’s tempting for us in the midst of the mess we marketers try to track every day, to throw our hands up and exclaim “it’s all chaos!” However, I would (and have) argued there to still be a purchase intent progression that takes place in the customer journey. That is, and always has been the marketing funnel and rather than kill it, we need to realize the genius of it. 120 years later, it still enhances our ability to understand the different phases of the buying journey, and even if we have more access into the true mess that is each “phase”… and even if those phases sometimes do shift around or get skipped, the overall principle still remains. That is, people have always purchased, and still purchase by walking through these categories:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

More Resources:

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Image Credits All screenshots taken by author, June 2019

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/the-marketing-funnel-isnt-dead-we-just-understand-it-better-via-ppckirk/

Judge refuses to delay Democrats’ suit accusing Trump of violating the emoluments clause

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Constitutional Law

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 26, 2019, 12:33 pm CDT

President Donald Trump/Shutterstock.com.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has refused to delay a lawsuit filed by nearly 200 congressional Democrats that accuses President Donald Trump of violating the emoluments clause. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan refused Tuesday to delay the suit while the Justice Department appeals his rulings, report the New York Times, Courthouse News Service, the Wall Street Journal, the Connecticut Post and the Washington Post. Sullivan also refused the government’s request that he certify an immediate, interim appeal. The suit contends Trump’s businesses violate the emoluments clause by accepting payments for hotel rooms and licensing fees for his show, The Apprentice, from foreign governments. The emoluments clause states that, absent congressional consent, no one holding any office of profit or trust shall “accept of any present, emolument, office or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince or foreign state.” The government contends the clause bars only payments received in a president’s official capacity. Sullivan disagreed in an April 30 decision. He also ruled last September that the Democrats have standing to sue. The government had argued a direct appeal of Sullivan’s rulings was justified by “exceptional circumstances”—the litigation could distract the president from his duties. In refusing to certify an interlocutory appeal, Sullivan said the government had to meet a high standard designed to prevent piecemeal reviews of rulings before the conclusion of litigation. Sullivan said the burden of discovery wasn’t demanding, and the entire litigation could be resolved quickly with decisions on motions for summary judgment. “This case will be poised for resolution within six months; an immediate appeal would hardly materially advance its ultimate termination,” Sullivan wrote. A Justice Department spokesperson released this statement: “This case should have been dismissed. It presents important questions that warrant immediate appellate review and is another impractical attempt to disrupt and distract the president from his official duties.” The case is Blumenthal v. Trump. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), the lead plaintiff, said in a tweet that the decision is a “historic triumph for legally mandated transparency.”

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/judge-refuses-to-delay-democrats-suit-accusing-trump-of-violating-the-emoluments-clause/

Fact or Myth: Mobile Killed Desktop via @christijolson

Smarter customer journeys start with finding the facts and dispelling the myths. Today’s marketers must decipher fact from fiction as they strive to reach customers in new ways across new channels. Let’s start with a myth that just doesn’t seem to go away: is the desktop truly dead? Is it really losing relevance as increasingly savvy consumers embrace new devices? Let’s dive in. With the massive growth in mobile device usage, one might think that mobile advertising is slowly killing desktop advertising. After all, the signs are everywhere:

• The teenagers pulling up e-tickets to the latest “Star Wars” blockbuster.
• The woman on the bus scrolling through handbags on Zappos.
• The couple at Starbucks comparing Caribbean vacation deals over double-shot, no-whip, white chocolate mochas.

So, what does that mean for the future of desktop advertising? Perhaps the ’79 tune “Video Killed the Radio Star” comes to mind?

Not so Fast – Look to the Data

Before you come to any conclusions, let’s examine the data. Yes, mobile search volume is continuing to rise. But guess what? So is desktop search volume. Surprised? According to our data here at Microsoft Advertising desktop search and click volumes are continuing to grow YOY – along with mobile search and click volumes (which admittedly, are growing a bit faster). It’s a case of the digital pie getting bigger – which means both desktop and mobile are getting a bigger piece of the overall advertising pie. But what about conversions, you ask? That honor still goes to the desktop. Research done by the folks at eMarketer indicates that 80% of online conversions happen on desktops, while only 20% occur on mobile devices. That’s a big chunk! Whether it’s due to their larger screens or the fact that we use them at work, data shows we still prefer shopping on our desktops.

But Let’s Not Dismiss the Merits of Mobile Advertising

Consumers are clearly attached to their mobile devices and continue to find new ways to use them, which means the mobile market will continue to expand. Besides that, Statista data indicates that 24% of U.S. ecommerce spending comes from mobile devices. But there are some key hurdles that mobile marketers must contend with. The fact remains that the time consumers spend on these devices is more frequently related to non-commerce activities like texting, social media, and old-fashioned talking. Finding creative ways to integrate ads and engage these audiences (without seeming like a disruption) is the tricky part. That said, many advertisers have asked me about our Mobile Growth strategy, because while it may be a smaller percentage of conversions, it’s still an important touchpoint along the customer decision journey. With the Verizon Media partnership migration helping increase our mobile share, advertisers can capture this new demand. Consistent with expectations, we have seen a 10-15% click lift across all our device and product types (Text Ads and Shopping Campaigns). To capitalize on this, you should make sure you’ve enabled mobile targeting and have budget to support the increase in potential clicks now that the migration has finished.

What Happens Online, Doesn’t Stay Online

One of the greatest potential opportunities for marketers is uncovering how and when consumers use their mobile or desktop devices. By understanding usage, it becomes easier to influence the consumer decision journey – even if more conversions happen on the desktop. Or, more likely, in a brick-and-mortar store. eMarketer data indicates that 90% of sales still occur in-store. While customers might use desktops or mobile devices to compare prices, check reviews, and access coupons, in the end, they’re likely to spend their money at a physical location. But we also know that the consumer decision journey isn’t a straight line. It’s a veritable tangle as shoppers zig-zag between online and offline experiences. As technology evolves, consumers expect brands to deliver an increasingly connected experience. Data from Forrester indicates that 45% of in-store shoppers believe sales associates should know about online-only products, and 71% feel it’s important to see inventory information online for items in-store.

Optimizing for Modern Journeys

Clearly, both desktop and mobile are essential components of today’s consumer decision journey. Below, I’ve outlined a few strategies to help you optimize your O2O (online-to-offline) marketing efforts.

Put Things in Context

Understanding context is key to reaching your customer at just the right time with the right message. Focus on engaging customers at specific moments in their journey.

Sharing Is Caring

Who needs silos? Work with other departments like public relations, product teams, and customer service to share data. Cross-departmental data can help you to streamline the customer journey – and it can also help your coworkers deliver better results.

Boost Shopability

Customers looking to buy, often want to buy right now. Make it easy for them to convert by ensuring all your touchpoints are shoppable. This can range from chatbots to Instagram to Facebook posts.

More Search Strategies

Use Local Inventory Ads Remember when I said consumers expect a connected experience across channels? Here’s one way to do that: use ads to promote local in-store inventory within the SERPs. In-Store Transactions & Offline Attribution Shedding light on the consumer decision journey will help make better marketing decisions. Work with technology providers and advertiser platforms that can help you connect the dots between online advertising and offline purchases. Microsoft Advertising leverages LiveRamp. Business Listings Make it easy for customers to find you when they’re ready to buy. Double check your listings for accuracy. In-store Pick-up Shoppers like fast and friction-free experiences. Up the ante with in-store pick-up and promote the service within your paid search ads. Mobile Don’t forget to leverage mobile, which plays a supporting role. Remember that shoppers like to do research in-store, so be sure to make targeted mobile campaigns part of your digital strategy. And don’t just measure with conversions: include other helpful KPIs such as downloads and views.

Summary

Even with the rise of the irresistible mobile device, desktop advertising is alive and kicking and as effective as ever. The key is using it within the context of the modern customer decision journey that includes a variety of touchpoints along a variety of devices. More Resources:

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Image Credits Screenshot taken by author, June 2019

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/fact-or-myth-mobile-killed-desktop-via-christijolson/

Roberts mostly joins liberal justices as SCOTUS refuses to overturn Auer decision on agency power

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U.S. Supreme Court

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 26, 2019, 9:50 am CDT

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The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to overturn a decision that gives power to federal agencies to interpret their own regulations. In a decision by Justice Elena Kagan on Wednesday, the Supreme Court refused to overturn the 1997 decision that established so-called Auer deference. Kagan emphasized, however, that the principle has its limits. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. supplied a critical fifth vote for sections of Kagan’s opinion upholding precedent and outlining limits on Auer deference. Joining Kagan’s opinion in full were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Auer deference was established in the 1997 decision Auer v. Robbins, which held that courts should defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation. “Auer deference retains an important role in construing agency regulations,” Kagan wrote. “But even as we uphold it, we reinforce its limits. Auer deference is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not. Whether to apply it depends on a range of considerations.” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said Kagan’s opinion had imposed so many limits on Auer deference that “the doctrine emerges maimed and enfeebled—in truth, zombified.” He and three conservative justices who joined his opinion all or in part would have overturned the Auer decision altogether. The petitioner in the case before the court is James Kisor, a Marine veteran seeking disability benefits for his post-traumatic stress disorder. The Department of Veterans Affairs agreed that Kisor has PTSD, but it refused to grant retroactive benefits based on its interpretation of the term relevant in agency regulations on late appeals of denied claims. The case returns to a federal appeals court for a reexamination of whether Auer deference applies. Justices who did not join Kagan’s opinion concurred in the judgment because it reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The majority opinion said these limits apply to Auer deference: • A court shouldn’t apply Auer deference unless a regulation is genuinely ambiguous. • A court must exhaust traditional tools of construction before concluding a rule is genuinely ambiguous. “Only when that legal toolkit is empty and the interpretive question still has no single right answer” can a judge conclude a regulation is ambiguous, Kagan said. • If there is a genuine ambiguity, the agency interpretation must be reasonable. • A court should “make an independent inquiry into whether the character and context of the agency interpretation entitles it to controlling weight,” Kagan said. The interpretation must be the official position of the agency, and the interpretation must implicate the agency’s substantive expertise. Business groups and conservatives have argued that Auer deference gave too much power to agencies. Some saw the Supreme Court’s decision to accept Kisor’s case as an indication it will eventually review Chevron deference. That principle, established in the 1984 decision Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, says federal courts should defer to reasonable federal agency views when Congress passes ambiguous laws. Roberts and four other conservative justices, in separate opinions, made clear that they did not think the majority ruling upholding Auer foreclosed a review of Chevron deference. Gorsuch went the furthest, writing in footnote 114 that there are “serious questions” about the Chevron doctrine’s constitutionality and its compatibility with the Administrative Procedure Act. Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett M. Kavanaugh joined that section of Gorsuch’s dissent. The case is Kisor v. Wilkie. Hat tip to SCOTUSblog for its early coverage of the decision. Related articles: ABAJournal.com: “Auer deference precedent targeted by business groups may be overturned by SCOTUS” ABAJournal.com: “Chemerinsky: What SCOTUS rulings are we still waiting for?”

https://www.forlawfirmsonly.com/roberts-mostly-joins-liberal-justices-as-scotus-refuses-to-overturn-auer-decision-on-agency-power/

Google Search Console Offers Three New Sets of Googlebot Crawling Data via @MattGSouthern

Google has updated Search Console with new sets of data to help people understand how their site is crawled by Googlebot. These updates are being rolled out as part of Google’s mobile-first indexing initiative. Now, people can learn which version of Googlebot is primarily crawling their site. They can also find out the primary crawler used for specific reports, and the exact date when their site was switched to mobile-first indexing. Here’s more information about each of these new data sets.

Primary Googlebot Crawler

Google is now going to show users which version of Googlebot is crawling their site most of the time. This information can be found in the settings panel: If the primary crawler is “Googlebot Smartphone,” then that’s a sure indication your site has been moved to mobile-first indexing. Google will also indicate which crawler was used to collect data for specific reports. In theory, the primary crawler for reports should match the overall primary crawler for the site.

Date of Mobile-First Indexing Switch

Google will now include an annotation on reports indicating when a site was moved to mobile-first indexing. No more guessing when your site made the switch. Now you’ll have the exact date included in your reports.

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/google-search-console-offers-three-new-sets-of-googlebot-crawling-data-via-mattgsouthern/