Posted by davidzimmThis post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. If you haven’t tried it out yet, blekko.com is a unique search engine. Along with allowing you to customize your own search results (or view results customized by one of its editors) it transparently provides a plethora of data showing why it ranks sites in the search results. The best part is, even if you aren’t trying to increase visits…
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Most Topular Stories
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Using blekko's SEO Data to Evaluate Web Directories
SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog8 Feb 2012 | 6:10 am -
Season 2 Finale: How Yamaha Invests in New Customer Experiences
Social Media Today - The world's best thinkers on social media8 Feb 2012 | 9:58 amHere, Yamaha shares that it needed “to blow up” its existing systems and processes and “start over” to compete more effectively for the future. -
Free Webinar: 2012 Social Media Strategies For Real Estate & Mortgage
Social Media Marketing19 Jan 2012 | 9:41 pmClick Here for Full View Social Media Strategies in 2012 for Mortgage and Real Estate Professionals– Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Discover How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Make More Money in 2012 Social media can be an inexpensive – yet lucrative means– to generate leads and grow your business. Join us for an in-depth look at how to implement Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media to excel in a “people-driven” economy this year. Join us for a free webinar hosted by Trevor Hammond, Founder and CEO of MFIC Pro:Social Media Strategies in 2012 for Mortgage… -
How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support
@ProBlogger8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 amThis guest post is by Matthew Setter of Malt Blue. How often do you find it happening to you? You discover an issue with your site, or one of your community members emails you to tell you about it, and soon you start to see tweets about it too. Maybe it’s as simple as an error message that detracts from the professional appearance of your site. Perhaps the contact form doesn’t send messages to your contact email address. Or is it that the whole site just displays as a blank page, otherwise known as the white page of death? You’re not a programmer, a software engineer or a seasoned… -
RIAA President: Google ‘Misused Its Power’ by Protesting SOPA
Search Engine Watch8 Feb 2012 | 2:00 pmGoogle abused its trust and misused its power when it blacked out its logo and encouraged its millions of users base to “Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!” At least according to the Recording Industry Association of America’s CEO.
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SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog
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Using blekko's SEO Data to Evaluate Web Directories
8 Feb 2012 | 6:10 amPosted by davidzimmThis post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. If you haven’t tried it out yet, blekko.com is a unique search engine. Along with allowing you to customize your own search results (or view results customized by one of its editors) it transparently provides a plethora of data showing why it ranks sites in the search results. The best part is, even if you aren’t trying to increase visits… -
10 Ways Paid Marketers Can Leverage Inbound Marketing
7 Feb 2012 | 12:33 pmPosted by JoannaLord It happened friends. After years of Rand exposing me to the many benefits of inbound marketing I am ready to admit it...{big gulp}...today's marketer needs to be doing more than paid marketing. In fact, I'd go as far as to say, if you are only doing paid marketing you are failing yourself and your company. THERE I SAID IT. I feel better. Way better actually. Because it's true. Things have changed. There is no longer two main players in the game (SEO and PPC). Search marketing itself has evolved. We've covered a great deal of this here on the blog so I… -
Building a Technical SEO Process
6 Feb 2012 | 1:01 pmPosted by Stephanie Chang One of the biggest challenges many of my clients face is building the right SEO processes in place, so that any problems are quickly accounted for before they lead to bigger issues. Below are three things you should consider when trying to create a more streamlined process for making sure the technical foundation of the site is solid. Though none are considered "quick" or necessarily easy wins and can initially take a significant amount of time, ultimately in the long-run, they will help make monitoring the SEO on your site more efficient. This means… -
Find Your Site's Biggest Technical Flaws in 60 Minutes
5 Feb 2012 | 1:14 pmPosted by Dave Sottimano I've deliberately put myself in some hot water to demonstrate how I would do a technical SEO site audit in 1 hour to look for quick fixes, (and I've actually timed myself just to make it harder). For the pros out there, here's a look into a fellow SEO 's workflow; for the aspiring, here's a base set of checks you can do quickly. I've got some lovely volunteers who have kindly allowed me to audit their sites to show you what can be done in as little as 60 minutes. I'm specifically going to look for crawling, indexing and potential… -
How to Build an Advanced Keyword Analysis Report in Excel
4 Feb 2012 | 12:04 amPosted by Dan PeskinThis post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. Analyzing keyword performance, discovering new keyword opportunities, and determining which keywords to focus efforts on can be painstaking when you have thousands of keywords to review. With keyword metrics coming from all over the place (Analytics, Adwords, Webmaster Tools, etc.), it’s challenging to analyze all the data in one place regularly…
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Social Media Today - The world's best thinkers on social media
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Season 2 Finale: How Yamaha Invests in New Customer Experiences
8 Feb 2012 | 9:58 amHere, Yamaha shares that it needed “to blow up” its existing systems and processes and “start over” to compete more effectively for the future. -
Listening Platforms; Useful or Strategic?
8 Feb 2012 | 8:37 amMarketing executives want to gain insights into their customers’ behavior. They don’t want a red, yellow, green dashboard; they want actionable answers to questions like the following: is your marketing messaging aligned to what customers in the global market value? How is your messaging influencing customers at a brand level and at a product level? -
A business blogger connects with clients and industry influencers.
8 Feb 2012 | 8:26 am"Now they're reading mine" features business blogger Elise Segar, www.ifridge.com/people/elisesegar. Part of Elastic Lab’s Culture of Content Creation series on digital content creators. Filmmaker: Paul Essenfeld, www.essenfeld.com -
Cross Platform Marketing Amplifies Jackson Hewitt Campaign [CONVO]
8 Feb 2012 | 7:35 amThis season, Jackson Hewitt, working with agency 22squared, is carefully coordinating all elements — TV, print and multiple social channels — to be heard amid the roar of the significantly larger media spend of its competitor, H & R Block. In this conversation, Jackson Hewitt's David Koroghlian and Chris Tuff of 22squared reveal how they have achieved success that has, according to the companies, exceeded their expectations. -
Keep Your Audience on Its Tweet: 4 Keys to Building a Strong Social Following
8 Feb 2012 | 5:29 amIf the presidential election—coming to a polling place near you in November—is the nation’s foremost popularity contest (more than 65 million Americans voted for President Barack Obama in 2008) the ongoing battle for followers on Twitter, from a purely competitive standpoint, isn’t far behind.
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Social Media Marketing
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Free Webinar: 2012 Social Media Strategies For Real Estate & Mortgage
19 Jan 2012 | 9:41 pmClick Here for Full View Social Media Strategies in 2012 for Mortgage and Real Estate Professionals– Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Discover How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Make More Money in 2012 Social media can be an inexpensive – yet lucrative means– to generate leads and grow your business. Join us for an in-depth look at how to implement Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media to excel in a “people-driven” economy this year. Join us for a free webinar hosted by Trevor Hammond, Founder and CEO of MFIC Pro:Social Media Strategies in 2012 for Mortgage… -
6 Most Popular Real Estate Social Media Posts
1 Jan 2012 | 7:09 amI hope 2012 brings you much success in all of your endeavors. I want to share with you the top blog posts that received the most shares, interactions and comments throughout the past year along with a few of my favorite new year pictures. photo credit: Shutterstock 12 Essential iPad Apps For Your Small Biz 10 Rockin’ Real Estate iPad Apps photo credit: Shutterstock HOW TO: Setup a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog Top 10 Real Estate Social Media Resources photo credit: Shutterstock Top 7 Famous Failures 7 Tips To Market Your Real Estate Biz w/Social Media in 30 min / Day Here’s… -
7 Tips To Market Your Real Estate Business with Social Media in 30 min / Day
9 Dec 2011 | 10:06 amI know your story…As a real estate or mortgage professional you just don’t have the time to deal with social media. I hear this every day – in fact I’m receiving many requests to start a company that manages social media profiles specifically for real estate and mortgage professionals. Here are 7 Tips To Market Your Real Estate Business with Social Media in 30 Minutes / Day Tip #1 Find Your Clients Favorite Social Media Sites As you attend events or meet new clients be sure to look them up on social networks to connect with them. This will allow you to maintain… -
3 Mistakes To Avoid Using Social Media For Real Estate
5 Sep 2011 | 6:57 pmThis is a great video from Scott Stratten author of Unmarketing. He focuses on things to avoid for Real Estate Agents. Be sure to implement these changes NOW! These sites Santa Clarita Breaking News Twitter & Santa Clarita Breaking News Facebook are a few examples of how to use community based events to draw people to your website. Naomi Trower Real Estate Broker Social Media Strategist Social Media Real Estate Marketing Are you a FAN? http://fb.com/RealEstateSocialMediaMarketing Share this on del.icio.us Digg this! Share this on Facebook Add this to Google Bookmarks Add this to Google… -
HOW TO: Give Your Heart At BlogWorld Expo LA
31 Aug 2011 | 12:00 amHere is my review of Blog World Expo 2010. Be sure to register for the 1st ever Blog World Expo LA 2011! What is the one thing that surprised you while you were at Blog World Expo 2010? For me, it was the few people that actually came to the microphone during the question part of the program and said, “First off, I want to give a personal plug about myself, check out my website blah, blah, blah…” Really? How many times do we have to share that it’s not about you? I thought I would share how to give your heart at events such as these. Then I will share my…
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@ProBlogger
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How to Succinctly Report a Blog Issue to Tech Support
8 Feb 2012 | 6:07 amThis guest post is by Matthew Setter of Malt Blue. How often do you find it happening to you? You discover an issue with your site, or one of your community members emails you to tell you about it, and soon you start to see tweets about it too. Maybe it’s as simple as an error message that detracts from the professional appearance of your site. Perhaps the contact form doesn’t send messages to your contact email address. Or is it that the whole site just displays as a blank page, otherwise known as the white page of death? You’re not a programmer, a software engineer or a seasoned… -
Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger: Part 2
7 Feb 2012 | 12:05 pmThis guest post is by Devesh of WP Kube. A few months ago, I wrote a guest post here called How to Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger. Today, I’ll go into some more detailed advice to help you speed up your site even more. If you’re a blogger, you already know about the importance of blog loading speed, and the role it plays in search engine rank and marketing your blog. But if this is new territory for you, here are three quick reasons why you need to speed up your blog: Google includes website loading speed as an important metric in their ranking algorithm. If you want… -
How I Beat my Best Month Ever by Doing Something Good, Better [Case Study]
7 Feb 2012 | 6:04 amMid-December 2010: on my photography site, we launched a new campaign—our first ever 12 Days of Christmas promotion. The result was my biggest month of earnings ever up to that point. The idea was simple: offer discounts on 12 products over the 12 days leading up to Christmas. I used a mix of my own ebooks and products from other photography sites with affiliate commissions. The result was massive. Not only did we see some great revenue generated, it created some lovely buzz on the site. Due to the success of the 2010 campaign, in mid-December 2011 we launched our second 12 Days of… -
Six Steps to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready to Go Viral
6 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amThis guest post is by Nancy Sathre-Vogel of Family on Bikes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Surely Google Analytics was confusing my site with another, way more popular site. There was no way my visitor numbers could be so high! And yet they were. One of my posts had taken off and was spreading like wildfire. Those viral post phenomena that happen to others were now happening to me. The first day, 17,000 visitors came to my website. The next day we topped out at 56,000. Readers were coming in droves. It was exciting. It was exhilarating. My site, viral! Wow! And then I took a… -
How to Handle Criticism: a Practical Guide
5 Feb 2012 | 12:03 pmImage by Stuart RichardsAs bloggers, each of us has to deal with criticism. Blogging is a very public activity—almost all of us has the goal of gaining readers to our blogs—and the more people you reach, the more likely it is that you’ll hear criticisms. “You’re wrong…” “How can you say that? You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “I couldn’t disagree more…” “This is the last time I read this blog!” These are just some of the criticisms bloggers regularly face—I’ve received versions of…
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Search Engine Watch
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RIAA President: Google ‘Misused Its Power’ by Protesting SOPA
8 Feb 2012 | 2:00 pmGoogle abused its trust and misused its power when it blacked out its logo and encouraged its millions of users base to “Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!” At least according to the Recording Industry Association of America’s CEO. -
Privacy Group Sues FTC to Stop New Google Privacy Policy
8 Feb 2012 | 1:00 pmThe Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is suing the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in the hopes of stopping the new Google privacy policy, which is set to become effective March 1. The complaint was filed today in federal district court. -
Google Debuts Chrome for Android
8 Feb 2012 | 11:00 amThe mobile version of Chrome runs on smartphones or tablets with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or above. Although Chrome for Android was designed from the ground up for mobile devices, it has many of the same features of the desktop version. -
5 'Moneyball' Tips for Search Marketers from Billy Beane
8 Feb 2012 | 8:00 amOakland A's General Manager Billy Beane talked baseball, metrics, and people calling him crazy, with an audience of search marketers and corporate executives in a keynote yesterday at Covario’s InflectionPoint 2012 conference in California. -
2 Non-Obvious PPC Split Tests
8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amSimple PPC split testing can provide market insights that allow you to connect deeply and powerfully with your prospects. All that’s required is a willingness to think, wonder, and ask. Here are two questions to jump-start your own deep curiosity.
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Entrepreneur Update
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Seven Ways to Kill Your Meetings and Unleash Productivity
8 Feb 2012 | 12:08 pmDespite studies showing that meetings are a colossal waste of time, they remain common. Here's how to collaborate while cutting back on meetings. -
The Danger of Being Franchisee No. 1
8 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amSure, it's a thrill to get in on the ground floor of a hot new concept. But it's risky to invest in an unproven business model. Here are questions to ask. -
How the White House Became a Social-Media Powerhouse
8 Feb 2012 | 7:00 amMacon Phillips, the White House's director of New Media, describes how the administration is using social media in unique ways -- and how your business can too. -
No-Cost Ways to Increase Your Sales This Year
8 Feb 2012 | 5:02 amYou don't need to spend a lot to win a lot of sales in 2012. -
The Battle Against SOPA Is Far From Over
8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 amEven though the anti-piracy bill has been sidelined, other proposed legislation still exist that pose equal threats to online businesses.
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Lifehacker
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Microsoft OneNote Comes to Android, Syncs with Microsoft SkyDrive [Onenote]
8 Feb 2012 | 4:30 pmMore » -
Remains of the Day: Windows 8 Consumer Preview Launches Feb. 29th [For What It's Worth]
8 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pm -
How to Set Up Windows 7 Homegroups for Seamless, Instant Sharing Between PCs In Your Home [Emailable Tech Support]
8 Feb 2012 | 3:30 pmMore » -
Amazon Prime Expands Its Video Streaming Library, Adds 2,000 More Titles [In Brief]
8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 pm -
Daily App Deals: Get ProCamera for iOS for Only 99¢ in Today's App Deals [Deals]
8 Feb 2012 | 2:30 pm
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Copyblogger
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The “New” SEO Secret Weapon
8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIf you have a web site, you may have noticed one of two things about the traffic you get from search engines. Your search traffic may have dried up overnight, with once-healthy streams turning into a sad little trickle. Or you may have noticed a nice, steady improvement as you’ve climbed higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages), while other sites that used to outrank you suddenly evaporated. There’s a super-secret new ingredient in SEO. It was always a factor, but it’s become even more important recently, as the Google team relentlessly declares war on what they see… -
8 Quick Tips for Writing Bullet Points People Actually Want to Read
7 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amIt’s a Twitterized world, we’re just living in it. Blog posts, Tweets, quick videos, Google+, the Facebook Timeline, and tens of thousands of images pinned to digital boards are flying past us faster than we can read them. Faster than we can even scan them, depending on the time of day. What does this mean for writers trying to cut through it all? At least two things that I can think of: You’d better know how to write a compelling headline You’d better know how to write bullet points that grab (and keep) your reader We’re not telling you to keep your copy short. -
7 Crucial Tactics for Writing a Wildly Successful Guest Post
6 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amWe all know that guest posts grow blogs. But not many people realize that tactical guest posting grows careers. Most bloggers I see pump out these articles while reciting the mantra “quantity over quality”; there’s no real strategy and there are no real long-term benefits. In this post I am going to show you the seven crucial tactics for writing a radically successful guest post. Done right, these strategies will get you more email subscribers, coveted Google ranking positions, and a big head-start on your content marketing goals. Who am I to teach you about guest blogging? -
7 Smashing Social Media Marketing Links
4 Feb 2012 | 3:00 amThis week on The Lede … What really works on Twitter One thing social media copywriters should never do 9 productive social media hacks A reminder of the power of the original social media If you just can’t wait for The Lede every Saturday, and you want even more practical, useable links than the seven we highlight here every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter. It’s painless. Really. // 9 Social Media Hacks You Need to Embrace Now Mr. Baer makes a good case that though social media is inexpensive in monetary terms, it can get good and costly when it comes to spending your… -
Whether You Call it Blogging or Not, Online Content Still Rules
3 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amWhat if most of the business world stopped blogging tomorrow? Would you stop as well? No, if that happened, you’d find yourself sitting on the opportunity of a lifetime. Social networking sites would explode with likes and retweets and pins and +1s of your original content all day long. This is why the annual “blogging is dead” claim is so dumb. Even if it were true, your continued content production would dominate the web in every way. So, instead of worrying about the latest claimed trend or alarming decline of the moment, stay the course. Original content creation is the…
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Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
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SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 8, 2012
8 Feb 2012 | 2:23 pmBelow is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Testing New Search Results Design Bing is testing a new design for the search results layout. The new design seems a lot cleaner, fresher and more organized... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article. -
Bing Testing New Search Results Design
8 Feb 2012 | 1:43 pmBing is testing a new design for the search results layout. The new design seems a lot cleaner, fresher and more organized compared to the older design. Jason Hart tipped us off listing out the key differences: Vertical tabs removed Top and bottom search boxes widened Search button icon changed... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article. -
How To Make Unstructured Data Actionable In Display
8 Feb 2012 | 11:05 amI wrote recently about the new era of display marketing, and how real time bidding and other advances are bringing the precision and performance of search advertising to display. Well…a new era of unstructured data is also upon us. A widely cited 2011 IDC study found that the amount of data in the... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article. -
Survey: People Largely Negative About Google’s Personalized Search Results
8 Feb 2012 | 10:48 amEarlier this month market research tool provider Ask Your Target Market surveyed 400 US adults about their attitudes toward personalized search on Google. The results were reported today in eMarketer’s email newsletter. We went back to the source to check out the survey and discovered that... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article. -
Why Does Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine Hate Rick Santorum?
8 Feb 2012 | 9:14 amUS presidential candidate Rick Santorum pulled off a surprise last night, winning caucuses and primaries in three states. So what’s with Bing listing an anti-Santorum web site first in its results in a search for his last name? Does Microsoft have some type of liberal agenda! Wait, you... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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Smashing Magazine Feed
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Collaging: Getting Answers To The Questions You Don’t Know To Ask
6 Feb 2012 | 7:02 amWhen conducting user research, we all know that asking the right questions is just as important as how you ask them, but how do you know exactly what questions to ask? What if the discussion topic is very personal? How do you get a complete stranger to open up? There is a better way to conduct an in-depth interview, and it doesn’t involve a clipboard. Just imagine what you could discover if the participant’s answers weren’t limited to a predetermined set of questions. This is where collaging can help. Collaging is a projective technique by which participants select images… -
How To Use Custom Post Types To Organize Online Marketing Campaigns
3 Feb 2012 | 7:04 amCustom post types add a level of flexibility to WordPress that makes this open-source Web development platform more useful on many levels. Whenever I have been faced with a Web-based task, especially one that involves organizing information, the first thing I do is examine WordPress to determine if it can handle the job. It usually can. Image Source As an Internet marketer and analyst, I need to be able to organize online marketing campaigns in a way that is trackable in Google Analytics. This is the perfect task for WordPress custom post types. In this article, we’ll explain… -
Freebie: St. Valentine’s Day Icon Set (10 PNG/PSD Icons)
2 Feb 2012 | 7:38 amEvery now and then, we release useful freebies for all of our highly valued readers. Today, it is our pleasure to present to you Cuberto‘s fantastic St. Valentine’s icon set — exclusively designed for Smashing Magazine and its loyal readers. The icons presented are available in transparent PNGs as well as Photoshop PSDs (128×128 px) and are perfect for any projects you have coming up for St. Valentine’s Day. Enjoy! Download the Set for free! This icon set is completely free to use for commercial or personal applications without any… -
Ten Things To Think About When Designing Your iPad App
31 Jan 2012 | 9:03 amLike most well-designed things, the magic of an iPad app comes from a union of usefulness, usability and meaning. Games aside, the app must be useful by solving a problem that people actually have through the right set of functionality at the right time. It must be easy to use and, just as importantly, easy to get started using, without a lot of pesky setup and learning steps. And it must hold meaning for the user through visual beauty, an emotional connection, personal insights, etc. In this article, we won’t outline the entire design process for creating an iPad app, but we… -
Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: February 2012
31 Jan 2012 | 5:48 amWe always try our best to challenge your artistic abilities and produce some interesting, beautiful and creative artwork. And as designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one — desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This creativity mission has been going on for over two years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. We continue to nourish you with a monthly spoon of inspiration. This post features…
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Social Media Examiner
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8 Brands That Benefit From Guest Blogging
8 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amGuest blogging is one of the most efficient, yet misunderstood, social media marketing tactics.It’s not new. In fact, it’s almost as old as blogging itself. It started becoming a standout tactic just a few years ago.This post answers one of the most frequently asked questions: Is guest blogging good for “big guys?”By the way, “guest blogging, the time waster” is one of the myths I busted in my previous post for Social Media Examiner. Today’s article is one more argument in favor of guest blogging.Guest blogging is about placing your content for free… -
4 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Page Visibility
7 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amHave you noticed less interaction on your Facebook page in the last few months?Getting your updates to appear in the coveted news feed is more challenging than ever.I don’t have answers as to how the elusive Facebook algorithm works.What I do have are some suggestions on how to ensure that your page posts are being seen by your fans to give your page the maximum visibility.#1: Train Your Audience to Watch for Your ContentYou want to make sure you are delivering good content so that your audience won’t want to miss a thing. The best way to do this is to work toward building super… -
How AutoCAD Retooled Its Marketing With Facebook
6 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amChris Hession has been a product and marketing manager for nearly 15 years. But recently, his job completely changed.“Just in the last year and a half, social media has become not just a component of our product marketing plan, but really the core component,” said Hession, currently senior manager of Autodesk’s AutoCAD product marketing.“Pretty much for everything we do, we’re looking at, ‘How can we make this work for social?’”Millions of people worldwide use AutoCAD software to design everything from sunglasses to skyscrapers. If there’s… -
Will You Purchase Facebook Stock? This Week in Social Media
4 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amWelcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.What’s New This Week?Facebook Seeks to Raise $5 Billion in IPO: “Social networking titan Facebook filed to go public, seeking to raise $5 billion in the largest flotation ever by an Internet company on Wall Street.” Facebook shares are not expected to begin trading for several months. Experts expect this initial public offering to be much larger than Google was when it went public. Do you plan on… -
How Has Blogging Changed the Voice of Women?
3 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amIn this video I interview Lisa Stone, CEO and co-founder of BlogHer, the leading cross-platform media network created by, for and with women social media leaders.Lisa tells the story of BlogHer, the fifth largest blog network. She also shares insights and tips for successful blogs and current trends for women bloggers.Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:How blogging changes the voice of womenWhy blogging is the perfect tool for womenWhy you should find a community when you start bloggingHow to…
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SmartBrief on Social Media
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Do you worry that Facebook will start charging brands for Facebook pages after its initial public offering?
8 Feb 2012 | 9:29 am-More- -
Twitter under fire over Brazilian traffic-stop tweeters
8 Feb 2012 | 9:29 amBrazilian authorities are suing Twitter over accounts that publicize the locations of police roadblocks and speed traps to he -More- -
Interested in writing for SmartBlogs?
8 Feb 2012 | 9:29 amEveryone knows that SmartBrief aggregates the best content from around the Web, but did you know we also feature original blo -More- Social Media Content Manager LM&O Advertising -
Doritos' bandito baby wins USA TODAY-Facebook poll
8 Feb 2012 | 9:29 amAn ad featuring a grandmother sling-shotting a baby to snag a bag of Doritos won the USA TODAY-Facebook poll of best Super Bo -More- -
10 ways to write headlines that compel your customers to click
8 Feb 2012 | 9:29 amWithout an eye-catching headline, even the best blog posts and announcements can easily get lost in the often-overwhelming fl -More-
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SocialMouths
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The Rise Of Content Marketing [Infographic]
8 Feb 2012 | 2:05 pmTweet According the Content Marketing Institute, Content is one of the fastest growing segments in Marketing and an increasing number of marketers are relying more and more on their strategies to achieve success online. Is this a surprise to you? Because if it is, you have probably been living under a rock for the last couple of years. With the amount of content that goes left and right in front of you, on your screen, there are content creators, curators, users that share and consume on a minute to minute basis. Now, that doesn’t mean all that content is successful in reaching its… -
LinkedIn Or Facebook For Better B2B Marketing Results? [Includes Infographic]
6 Feb 2012 | 9:41 amTweet I know what you’re thinking just by reading the headline of this post: Of course LinkedIn is better for B2B marketing and Facebook for B2C. But wait, that is not necessarily the case. I have to admit I’m not as active on LinkedIn as I am on Facebook, or even Google+. That’s probably because my focus on this blog is to talk to entrepreneurs and small business. But when it comes to approach Corporate America, I automatically think I need to get out of these networks and go to LinkedIn. Some of you probably don’t know I’m also a partner at Plural and Partners,… -
Pinterest: Everything You Need To Know Is In This Massive Post
2 Feb 2012 | 10:30 amTweet Let me guess, you heard about Pinterest. Or more like, you can’t spend 15 minutes online without hearing about it… And now you’re thinking, “should I jump on the wagon too?” or “another social network to keep up with?” and on top of that, everybody is talking about using it for marketing and getting tons of traffic and, you just don’t see it. Alright, I hear you. I’ll give you everything you need to know about Pinterest and a bunch of resources so you can decide if you or your business are ready to join the hottest trend online. -
Social Proof, Shameless Self-Promotion, and Gratitude
1 Feb 2012 | 12:13 pmTweet This week started on a high note. The results for the Top 10 Social Media Blogs 2012 from Social Media Examiner arrived on my iPhone while I was getting my first coffee on Monday. SocialMouths was named #1. The afternoon wasn’t that fun when my server crashed welcoming all the traffic from the post, even though SocialMouths does not live in a shared $5 server at GoDaddy… still crashed. But that’s a whole different story. Then today my friend Jessica Northey pointed out that I was also included in the Top 100 Influencers in Social Media from Social Technology Review… -
How To Increase Clicks On Your Tweets [Infographic]
26 Jan 2012 | 8:40 amTweet If you are an entrepreneur using Twitter as part of the marketing strategy for your business or you are a blogger trying to improve your traffic, one of the most important metrics you look at is how many clicks your tweets are getting, specially when those tweets are containing links to your own site. One thing I’ll tell you right off the bat is that, marketing in general works different for each one of us and it delivers different kinds of results too. Twitter is no different and, while I always say that you should not rely on anybody’s advice but instead run several tests…
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Brian Solis
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Meet the Mother of All Processes
8 Feb 2012 | 10:32 amGuest post by John M. Bernard, author of the new book, Business at the Speed of Now, and Chairman and Founder of Mass Ingenuity. Imagine going to work in one of Henry Ford’s factories a century ago, proud that management referred to you a “hand” or a “hammer” or maybe even a “wrench.” The labels reflected Ford’s emphasis on automation and management’s view of laborers as mere cogs in the machine. Screw this nut onto that bolt; weld this strap to that frame; do it over and over and over again until your brain froze with boredom. Of course, management needed workers to get the… -
2011 Was the Year of the Mobile Consumer, What’s in Store for 2012? Value.
7 Feb 2012 | 10:10 amChris Silva, my colleague at Altimeter Group, released a useful report today that I wanted to share with you here. Mobile is important and I believe you know this. However, when we consider mobile, we often think about the experience when and where it begins. But, we often miss the opportunity to lead a more meaningful journey as it may travel from small screen to larger screens across laptops, desktops and beyond. And along the way, we must now determine our role in this journey to provide information, shape decisions, and influence behavior. In Chris’ report, he reminds us that 2011… -
Season 2 Finale: How Yamaha invests in new customer experiences
3 Feb 2012 | 10:52 amThis is it…the Season Finale! And, what a way to end Season 2 of (R)evolution…. In this episode, Yamaha shares what is by far the most expansive view of disruptive technology’s impact on business infrastructure and culture on the show to date. What you’ll see is a genuine discussion with Jeff Hawley and Rick Williams of Yamaha explore how an already successful business is exploring new opportunities to better define the customer experience before, during and after transactions. It comes down to workflow. Nowadays, it either works for you or works against you. Here,… -
Smartphones, Tablets, PCs, The Devices People Use to Discover Information in Social Media (and when)
2 Feb 2012 | 3:13 pmMy friends over at bit.ly published an interesting graph that reveals the devices as well as the days/times that people use different devices and how and when they consume information. As you can imagine, it’s across the board, but as you can see, there are waves that every device follows, except the desktop. Desktops are of course the devices that we can assume people use during work hours. As such, they are most heavily used on weekdays before noon. Interestingly enough, phone traffic peaks at about the same times, but not to similar effects. What’s also telling is that tablets… -
What’s Love Got to Do with It? The 3P’s of Identity
2 Feb 2012 | 6:16 amGuest post by Allison Cerra, author of Identity Shift With the 2012 Presidential election looming, there’s no shortage of polls to help narrow the field of candidates. I find a recent one from Fox News to be particularly fascinating. Among other questions, Republican primary voters were asked which Republican presidential candidate is most likeable and which they would most trust with a nuclear weapon. While Newt Gingrich scored at the top of the heap in earning the trust vote, he scored only marginally well on the likeability scale. The topic was discussed on the network’s “Fox &…
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Dan Zarrella
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[Infographic] How to Get More Clicks on Twitter
24 Jan 2012 | 9:18 pmI’ve often said that the best use of Twitter is as a broadcast medium. You should be creating a ton of interesting content and sharing it with your followers. To that end I’ve done a bunch of research on how to optimize the clickthrough rate (CTR) of the links you’re tweeting. For the purposes of this data, I’ve calculated CTR as the number of clicks on a tweeted link divided by the number of followers the account had when it tweeted that link. Below is an infographic presenting some of my past findings as well as some entirely new data I’ve found about… -
[Infographic] What are the Best Times to Blog?
22 Jan 2012 | 10:54 pmOne of the most popular webinars I’ve ever worked on, The Science of Timing was also one of my favorite. If you haven’t seen it, go check out the on-demand recording now. In it, I present data I’ve collected over three years about the effect timing has on a variety of online marketing activities, including blogging. Below is an infographic that represents a collection of the three most important stats I have about when to publish blog posts. In the webinar, I also make the point that my results are based on huge aggregates of thousands, millions, or even in some cases,… -
[Infographic] The 2012 Republican Candidates by the Twitter Numbers
17 Jan 2012 | 9:59 pmI’ve studied the relationship between Twitter success and politics before, and since this year is a big year in elections, I figured I’d do it again. This time I looked at how the 4 front-running republican presidential candidates are doing on Twitter. I analyzed the obvious numbers, followers, retweets and mentions, but I also looked at a few of my favorite, deeper metrics: retweets-per-follower, link-percentage and reply-percentage. I also looked at Twitter “penetration” in two upcoming primary states: South Carolina and Florida. Notice anything that surprises you in… -
[Infographic] How To Use Contra-Competitive Timing for More ReTweets, Likes, Comments and Clicks
16 Jan 2012 | 11:44 pmOne of the most interesting patterns I’ve found while studying social media and marketing data is what I call in my book “contra-competitive timing.” I’ve found in numerous cases that the most successful times and days to publish new content are off-peak times. It’s like when you’re at a noisy party and it’s hard to hear the person talking to you 2 feet away, but suddenly you say something awkward and the room quiets down. Now everyone can hear you. The same is true with the internet. When there is less other noise to compete with (ie fewer Tweets,… -
[New Data] What Percentage of your Tweets Should be Links or Replies
10 Jan 2012 | 9:25 pmIf you like myth busting social media data like this, be sure to buy my newest book, Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness. One of the social media questions I’m most interested in is about whether Twitter is best suited for conversation or broadcasting. To many people’s surprise, I generally find myself on the broadcast side, and most of the data I’ve analyzed seems to back me up. Just yesterday, I started a little informal Twitter poll and found that respondents were pretty evenly split between broadcasting and conversation. This time, I looked at more than 100k…
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SEO Book.com
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Focus on The Business Model
4 Feb 2012 | 4:43 pmGoogle's Take on Search Plus Your World A few weeks ago Google announced the launch of Search Plus Your World, which deeply integrates social sites (especially Google+) into the Google search experience to make it more personalized. While Google claimed that the socialization was rather broad-based, the lack of inclusion of Facebook & Twitter along with the excessive promotion of Google+ raised eyebrows. While the launch was claimed to be social for personalizing results, the Google+ promotions appeared on queries where they were clearly not the most relevant result even when users are… -
Kill The Bugs!
3 Feb 2012 | 7:47 amYou can learn a lot more about what Google really thinks by reading what their new hires say. They are not yet skilled in the arts of public relations & make major gaffs like this one: Instead of being able to SEO the entire Internet, businesses can now only affect the search results for a tiny percentage of users. That's a good thing because SEO can't scale, and SEO isn't good for users or the Internet at large. If you look at the Google experience from the standpoint of customers, it's pretty good. Users get relevant search results and ads. Advertisers get their content on top of… -
AHREFS Review: An In-Depth Look at a New Link Research Tool
31 Jan 2012 | 5:28 pmAhrefs is the newest entry into the link research tool space. They use their own bot and their own index (which they state is based on information from a trillion website connections). They claim their index is updated every 30 minutes and the fresh data is available to their users within 30 minutes of the actual index refresh. Ahrefs also has a ranking database of roughly 45 million keywords from 9 different countries (US GB FR RU DE ES IT AU BR). The tools within their membership are: Site Explorer SERPs Analysis Reports Labs/Tools Their pricing is very straight-forward and only increases… -
Goldilocks SEO
31 Jan 2012 | 11:56 amSharing is caring! Please share :) Embed code is here. Categories: seo tips -
The Future of SEO Campaigns with Jon Henshaw & Taylor Pratt from Raven
26 Jan 2012 | 10:50 amHere is the audio if you'd prefer to listen :) Play File (mp3 link) Eric: All right, this is Eric over here at SEO Book and today I'm fortunate enough to be joined by Taylor Pratt and Jon Henshaw from Raven SEO Tools, thanks for joining us today guys. Taylor Pratt: Yeah, thanks for having us. Jon Henshaw: Yeah, good to see ya! Eric: All right, so we just have some questions here that I think our readers will appreciate and some of our members have been interested to know about as well. So, without further ado I'll jump right in here. Obviously you guys are essentially the creators of an…
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Search Engine Journal
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LinkAssistant – A Review of Options and Benefits
8 Feb 2012 | 11:15 amLinkAssistant is a part of the SEO PowerSuite and can help you with your link partner set-up and management. I recently tested out the software and I am going to breakdown some of its features and how the tool is used. LinkAssistant Features Helps users find link partners and find their contact info. LinkAssistant looks [...]Follow SEJ on Twitter @sejournal -
The Best Link Building Tool You’ve Never Heard Of: ahrefs.com
8 Feb 2012 | 9:00 amI love SEO tools. I’m always building or looking for really cool tools. With the demise of Yahoo Site explorer, a number of companies are attempting to fill the void, including SEOMoz, Majestic Tools and Link Research Tools. My favorite Yahoo replacement is a tool that you’ve probably never heard of: ahrefs. They offer 5 [...]Follow SEJ on Twitter @sejournal -
Pinterest: Covert Affiliate Link Scheme Exposed
8 Feb 2012 | 8:10 amAlthough nearly every start-up and fledgling company battles to find new ways to monetize its users, Pinterest appears to have been secretly capitalizing on its customer base through the use of affiliate links. The two year-old social network site, which allows users to “pin” photos, recipes, and products to a “virtual pin-board,” has quickly grown [...]Follow SEJ on Twitter @sejournal -
Put Your Business in its Place or Your Marketing Campaign Will
8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amOver the past 15 years starting a new business has become easier than ever before. The daily dread of horrible bosses, annoying red tape and ringing alarm clocks that force you out of bed before God gets up is forever behind you as you make that long-awaited jump to start your own online business. Your [...]Follow SEJ on Twitter @sejournal -
The Sponge & The Trailblazer: Making the Most of Your First Job in Search
7 Feb 2012 | 11:00 amAbout two months ago I wrote my first article for Search Engine Journal about getting your first job in SEO. Well now the dust has settled and I feel it is important to share what I have learned thus far during my young career in search marketing. This article will be broken down in halves [...]Follow SEJ on Twitter @sejournal
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Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
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It’s time to stop PROTECT IP
18 Jan 2012 | 4:47 amA couple months ago, I wrote this about SOPA: SOPA galvanized the tech community, from start-ups to venture capitalists to the largest web companies. SOPA was an unexpected shock and a wake-up call. Well, guess what? Now the internet is awake. And I don’t think it’s going back to sleep any time soon. We might need to rally again in the near future, but we can do that. The internet learns fast.Now it’s time to rally and get loud. It’s time to call your Senators. Heck, it’s time to ask your parents to call their Senators. If you think the internet is something different, something… -
Sharing a search story
11 Jan 2012 | 12:20 amI’ve been reading a lot of the coverage of the Search plus Your World launch and I wanted to share my story and then clarify something.I love to stay up until early in the morning playing Werewolf. In early December I went to a journalism conference called “News Foo Camp” in Phoenix and played a lot of Werewolf. When I got back, for some reason I searched for [werewolf] — maybe I was thinking about making a custom deck of werewolf cards. Because I was dogfood-testing Search plus Your World, this is what I saw:In the top row of pictures, you’ll see a bunch of people playing… -
Larry Lessig on the corrupting influence of money
13 Dec 2011 | 1:37 pmLarry Lessig has a new book called Republic, Lost which discusses the corrupting influence of money on politics. I would highly recommend the book, because it gets to the heart of why things so many things in Washington, D.C. seem broken today and how to fix them.If you don’t have the time to read the book right now, you’re in luck. Lessig recently stopped by Google and gave a brief overview of the themes from the book. I had the honor of introducing him, and the video is live on the web now. Lessig’s talk is about 45 minutes long (the rest of the video is questions and… -
Beware of fake Matts leaving comments
11 Dec 2011 | 5:20 pmA lot of the time, I dispel misconceptions by leaving comments on blogs. That works great, except for the rare occasion when someone pretends to be me and leaves a rude, fake, or otherwise untrue blog comment. Over the previous decade, I’ve only seen 4-5 times where someone impersonated me. But in the last month, I’ve seen at least three nasty comments written by “fake Matt Cutts” impersonators.The first fake-Matt comment I remember was over Marketing Pilgrim around November 14th, 2011. When Frank Reed checked out the fake comment, it came from 74.120.13.132, which is… -
Progress against SOPA
21 Nov 2011 | 8:01 amWhen I did my blog post about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) last week, things looked quite grim. The fight isn’t over, but there’s been a lot of great developments in the last few days. If you’re not familiar with SOPA (and the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate), here’s a video that covers the basics:This internet censorship under SOPA editorial by Rebecca MacKinnon also describes why SOPA would be really bad for the internet.I also wanted to take a minute and thank everyone who called or wrote their Congressperson to speak out against SOPA and PROTECT IP. As a result…
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Bruce Clay Blog
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Ask Him What NOT to Do: Woody Harrelson’s Social Media Smackdown
8 Feb 2012 | 12:07 pmAsk Him What NOT to Do: Woody Harrelson’s Social Media Smackdown was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips. Estimated reading time: 4 minutes Audience: ORM and SMM Practitioners Top takeaways: • Know your audience; it’s basic but dangerous to overlook. • Research an audience before speaking to them. Every online community sets its own rules. • A well-defined brand will be able to respond to unexpected questions in a genuine way. Don’t relegate a brand to a box. Know your audience. It’s a truism we assume every big… -
The Many Ways Virtual Communities Impact Our World Offline
7 Feb 2012 | 12:24 pmThe Many Ways Virtual Communities Impact Our World Offline was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips. Estimated reading time: 7 minutes Audience: Thinkers and philosophizers Top takeaways: • Virtual worlds can reinforce positive behavior offline. • Connectivity has drastically changed the way we interact — in good and bad ways. • We should take care to develop our virtual communities in the same way we develop the communities we live in. Technology has sufficiently crept into every nook and cranny of our lives. From the way we brush… -
The Optimized Future: SEO in the Year 2022
3 Feb 2012 | 1:20 pmThe Optimized Future: SEO in the Year 2022 was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.This post is an entry for SEO Chicks’ contest SEO: The Next Generation, which challenges folks who’ve been in SEO less than a year to predict what the industry will look like in the year 2022. This post is not meant to be taken seriously, nor does it refer to current or planned future services offered by Bruce Clay, Inc. January 2022: It seems like only yesterday that augmented reality (AR) contact lenses were considered just a toy for video gamers,… -
Why Page Titles Matter
2 Feb 2012 | 10:02 amWhy Page Titles Matter was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips. Estimated reading time: 2 minutes Audience: SEOs Top takeaways: • Google reminds webmasters that page Titles are used in SERP real estate. • Optimized page Titles are a basic SEO best practice but are sometimes overlooked. • Write concise, descriptive Titles. Avoid repeated or boilerplate Titles. Google recently reminded webmasters that page Titles matter and are an important part of the search results displayed. Why did Google write another post about “better page… -
Bruce Clay Inc.’s Statement on Local Paid Inclusion
1 Feb 2012 | 10:53 amBruce Clay Inc.’s Statement on Local Paid Inclusion was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.Late Monday, we announced the service “Local Paid Inclusion,” which we said gives local merchants higher rankings in the Places and local search results in Google, Yahoo! and Bing. We believed that the service offering was finalized between our backend partner and the aforementioned search engines. So far, we have determined that it is not a released program, made even more complicated by statements of confidentiality agreements that put the…
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Small Business Search Marketing
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Lots of National Advertisers are Ignoring Basic Local Search Tactics
8 Feb 2012 | 8:35 amThere are a lot of national advertisers/marketers who should be, but aren’t, taking full advantage of the most basic local search marketing tactics. That’s the main conclusion to be drawn from a new study by GMS Local. GMS surveyed marketers from national brands in the U.S. with more than 500 physical locations; two-thirds of the respondents were from traditional retail. While 70 percent of the survey takers said they spend more than 60 percent of their budgets on local marketing, the survey also revealed that many of these national companies aren’t doing some of the basic… -
Review Skeptic: An Algorithmic Approach to Fight Fake Reviews
7 Feb 2012 | 10:50 amSometimes you can spot a fake review a mile away. (Remember that old post about the fake florist reviews in California?) But some of the services that offer phony reviews for a small fee are getting smarter and less obvious about their spammy ways. Some really smart people are developing software programs that aim to spot fake reviews algorithmically, and you can play with one of them yourself. It’s called Review Skeptic, and it’s as simple as pasting the review text into the site and letting the computer guess if it’s authentic. The public website is out there “for… -
SEO: Are You Relevant, or Are You Vital?
2 Feb 2012 | 11:32 amRelevant web pages. Relevant title tags. Relevant meta descriptions. Relevant copywriting. You’ve heard it a million times, right? I’m guilty of talking about relevance to pretty much every SEO client I’ve ever had. No more. Relevancy is overrated. Anybody can be relevant; just throw a keyword on the web page a few times and BAM! You’re relevant. You want to do better than that. And what’s better than being relevant? Being vital. SEO Quality Scale If you think about an SEO quality scale, there’s nothing better than being vital. I’d never suggest that… -
January ’12: Best Search/Marketing Posts
31 Jan 2012 | 10:20 pmHere’s my roundup of the best search/marketing posts I found and read during January. If you’re new to this blog, this is a monthly feature that began way back in 2007. You can find earlier “Best Of”s for each month in the Link Roundups category archive. I never include my own posts in these end-of-month recaps. Local Search Chris Silver Smith/SEL: 10 Basic Bing Local Optimization Tips Mike Blumenthal: Google Places Troubleshooting: Best Practice for Dealing with a Merged Listing Miriam Ellis/SEG: Your Local SEO Checklist For 2012! Lisa Barone/Outspoken Media: 31… -
As Promised, Google Unmerged and Re-Merged My Wife’s Google Places Listing
30 Jan 2012 | 4:13 pmThe fun continues with my wife’s business listing in Google Places! As expected, Google has unmerged her listing with the Windermere Real Estate office in Richland. But it’s since re-merged the listing and created an even bigger mess. Ready to follow along? Google emailed to let me know the merged-with-Richland issue was being fixed. Sure enough, the Richland office now has its own listing, no sign at all of anything related to Cari’s account. Good for them. In the meantime, I updated Cari’s business name while all this was going on. I removed “Windermere Real…
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search engine marketing - Google Blog Search
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The Proper Way To Apply Search Engine Marketing When Getting ...
8 Feb 2012 | 1:16 pmSearch marketing isn't something to overlook when you need to accomplish your marketing on the internet. No matter your best niche, it's important to get the. -
Affordable SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING Services This Works ...
8 Feb 2012 | 12:53 pmSEO aims of looking for traffic coming in from search engines like google to internet sites and increase the online marketplace share. Many companies focus on providing cost-effective SEO providers and internet marketing -
Complimentary Search engine marketing Approaches that may ...
8 Feb 2012 | 12:48 pmComplimentary Search engine marketing Approaches that may Maintain your Affiliate business. Preferred points to have have the freedom, may very well beobserved in this article but any of us could quite possibly the same -
Nearby Search Engine Marketing and advertising Can Give ...
8 Feb 2012 | 10:58 amMany companies are discovering that local search engine advertising and marketing is among the most efficient strategies to enlighten other people of their tiny enterprise and acquire new buyers. There is a lot of power within -
How to Conduct Search engine marketing London for Travel ...
8 Feb 2012 | 2:18 amSearch engine marketing is a powerful tool for drawing huge number of potential customers. Most of the companies in London, whatever be their niche business, are using the online marketing opportunities and reaping rich
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Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing
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Quantifying Your Website's True Impact on Your Business
8 Feb 2012 | 1:40 pmby Mike Fleming Company owners and other business decision makers who handle a web marketing budget are given, whether it's their fault or not, too much website data that doesn't directly relate to an impact on the bottom line. What's wrong with this? Only looking at visits and pageviews gives an incomplete story of how a site is truly performing for its customers and the company. So, when it's time to decide how to invest, there's nothing concrete that gives confidence in where to put money. To combat this problem, there needs to be a fundamental mindset shift to focusing… -
The Super Simple Guide to Using and Marketing Through Pinterest - Part Two
3 Feb 2012 | 7:29 amby Jennifer Cario (If you are new to Pinterest and don't already have an account, make sure to read part one in this series.)Now that you've gotten youself up and running with a Pinterest account, it's time to put it to use to start collecting ideas, links and pictures. Remember, Pinterest is a powerful online filing system that gives you visual access to the things you might wish to use down the road. Back in part one we talked about setting up some topical boards to sort the "pins" you find. Today we're going to talk about how to find those pins.Browsing Your Friends' Pins and RepinningThe… -
The Super Simple Guide to Using and Marketing Through Pinterest - Part One
1 Feb 2012 | 4:52 pmby Jennifer Cario Pinterest is a virtual pin board that allows you to collect images and links to things you like on the web. If you've ever seen someone pull out a scrapbook filled with recipe clippings or a binder full of wedding or home remodel ideas, you've got the general idea. The difference with Pinterest is the fact that it all takes place online in an environment where you can share your collection with your friends and vice versa. To put it in the simplest of terms, Pinterest is an image based version of bookmarks. Pinterest is Growing RapidlyA few months ago, I would have forgiven… -
Don't Waste Time Looking at Web Data Until You Do This - Part 2
1 Feb 2012 | 12:11 pmby Mike Fleming Cutting through all the clutter of data, which metrics are your critical few? You probably have at most three critical few metrics that define your existence...If you can't take action with anything, then perhaps you are using the wrong metric for your business...the simple process of identifying a metric as your key performance indicator and creating a graph of it rarely helps you find insights...before you diagnose how to improve a metric, you have to identify all the influencing variables...analyzing the variables will help you identify where the true opportunities… -
Perception is Worth 1,001 Words
1 Feb 2012 | 11:51 amby Stoney deGeyter In the world of business, marketing and advertising is everything. Marketing is at least as important as the products or services you sell. Without marketing, you have no one to demonstrate the superiority of what you offer! There is a reason people build businesses in cities surrounded by people, rather than in a desert surrounded by cactus! You need people to market to, and you need customers coming in your door. The success of your business relies on how well you market your product or service first, and second by how well you deliver it. Very few businesses survive on…
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Google Webmaster Central Blog
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More Options for Google+ Badges
26 Jan 2012 | 1:53 pmWebmaster Level: All Update on February 2, 2012: The new Google+ badge is now out of preview and available to all users on all sites. When we launched Google+ pages in November, we also released Google+ badges to promote your Google+ presence right on your site. Starting today in developer preview (and soon available to all your users), we're adding more options for integrating the Google+ badge into your website. You can configure a badge with a width that fits your site design and choose a version that works better on darker sites. You'll also see that Google+ badges now include the unified… -
What’s new with Sitemaps
26 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pmWebmaster level: AllSitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site. Webmaster Tools’ Sitemaps feature gives you feedback on your submitted Sitemaps, such as how many Sitemap URLs have been indexed, or whether your Sitemaps have any errors. Recently, we’ve added even more information! Let’s check it out:The Sitemaps page displays details based on content-type. Now statistics from Web, Videos, Images and News are featured prominently. This lets you see how many items of each type were submitted (if any), and for some content types, we also show how many items have been… -
Update to Top Search Queries data
25 Jan 2012 | 2:00 pmWebmaster level: All Starting today, we’re updating our Top Search Queries feature to make it better match expectations about search engine rankings. Previously we reported the average position of all URLs from your site for a given query. As of today, we’ll instead average only the top position that a URL from your site appeared in. An example Let’s say Nick searched for [bacon] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 3, 6, and 12. Jane also searched for [bacon] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 5 and 9. Previously, we would have averaged all these positions together… -
Making form-filling faster, easier and smarter
25 Jan 2012 | 10:00 amWebmaster Level: Intermediate One of the biggest bottlenecks on any conversion funnel is filling out an online form – shopping and registration flows all rely on forms as a crucial and demanding step in accomplishing the goals of your site. For many users, online forms mean repeatedly typing common information like our names and addresses on different sites across the web – a tedious task that causes many to give up and abandon the flow entirely. Chrome’s Autofill and other form-filling providers help to break down this barrier by remembering common profile information and… -
Page layout algorithm improvement
19 Jan 2012 | 3:00 pmWebmaster Level: All In our ongoing effort to help you find more high-quality websites in search results, today we’re launching an algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result. As we’ve mentioned previously, we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content…
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Inside AdWords
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Writing ads that attract customers
6 Feb 2012 | 11:11 amWith the theme of Valentine's Day on our mind, we're sharing tips on how to spice up your AdWords text ads, courtesy of the AdWords Help Center.Start by taking a moment to consider what you want to do with your ad. Then use the six guidelines below to create an ad that's accurate, to-the-point, and engaging.Highlight what makes your business, product, or offer uniqueInclude prices, promotions, and exclusivesTell your customers what they can doInclude at least one of your keywords in your ad textMatch your ad to your landing pageExperimentHere are some examples:Couples Cooking… -
Impression Share Updates Rolling out Globally
30 Jan 2012 | 10:00 amStarting today, we will begin rolling out updates to your Impression Share metrics, which include new ad group-level impression share metrics as well as revised campaign-level impression share metrics. We've also changed the frequency with which we update this data to once a day. These updates will be in effect in all accounts globally over the next few days. For more information on Impression Share, please visit the AdWords Help Center. Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords Crew -
Perspective on Dynamic Search Ads - Guest Q & A with RKG
30 Jan 2012 | 8:52 amSince introducing Dynamic Search Ads in beta in October, we’ve seen questions from around the web asking about real-world performance and recommendations for implementation. Today we’re grateful to share the perspectives of Matt Mierzewski and Jen Syverud at RKG, an online marketing services firm with B2B and B2C clients ranging from startups to the Fortune 500 (details about RKG below).Here’s a short video followed by Q&A. RKG has further offered to answer any other questions you might have about their experience with Dynamic Search Ads over on their blog.Q. What’s your strategy… -
Love at first Search
26 Jan 2012 | 9:00 amMore and more people are falling in love with Valentine’s Day. According to a recent survey by ORC International, Valentine’s Day is now the number two gift giving holiday, right behind Christmas, with 88% of Americans saying they plan on giving a present to their loved ones. This should be great news for businesses, but marketers still have trouble making a love connection with consumers based on charts that look more like dated EKG readings than real-time insights into the heart of the consumer. Since getting the affections of one person is hard enough, below are some timely insights… -
Create more Automated Rules and undo changes
17 Jan 2012 | 3:00 pmWe heard your feedback that you want Automated Rules to be even more flexible and useful, so we rolled out two improvements - increased rule limit to 100 and the ability to undo changes made by a rule. 1. Increased rule limit to 100 We increased the number of rules you can create from 10 rules per user to 100. This should allow you to easily try out new rules -- have a look at common examples to see how advertisers are using Automated Rules. 2. Ability to undo changes made by a rule In the event that a rule doesn’t make the changes that you expect, you can easily undo them by clicking…
