• Hresume in microformats http://t.co/SnqqVgph or schema job posting http://t.co/2yaFTRTf for positions, interesting!
• Visit http://t.co/dxbvN0kT to find out when the next Google webmaster tools hangout is
• Think of rich snippets as rich summaries, it must visible on the landing page.
• Rich snippets are supposed to be short descriptions of the content on to the page, not a spam tactic
• Google plus pages for publishers with rel=publishers to the publishers google plus page – ideal for Brands!
• Authorship – use accurately for authors NOT publishers
• Recommended tools: AWR and quixapp
• Recommended tool: seo tools for excel – quickly pull data without being a developer
• 21% CTR without rich snippet versus 26% CTR with rich snippet in one test
• SERP Turkey is a b testing tool with SERPs
• Copy the schema and chuck it into the rich snippet tool by google
• Schema and micro formats enrich our SERPs (or pollute?)

Hardcore Local SEO Tactics

• RIP geo sitemap support
• Be alert to google map maker when it launches in UK (soon… We hope)
• Mobilize local hero passionate supporters of your industry/product to translate ur brand/product into real world says @aleyda
• Schema must be utilized for local content, use scheme creator or schema dentist
• Flow of fresh and relevant localized content must push into real world with local badges for brick and mortar says @aleyda

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. SMX Advanced Tips &Takeaways | SMX London 2012

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View full post on SEOptimise » blog

Every  SEO campaign can be  broken down into 5 fundamentals, then segmented into off-site (link building) and on-site (content) approaches to identify and understand the application. This webinar recap and slide deck (at the bottom of this post) is a top level guide to assist you with setting the correct content marketing strategy today.

1. Have a Plan

A good content strategy will consist of a plan rooted in specific value-based principles. These values are those that make a website good, worth visiting, long lasting etc. The way I came to determine just what these values should be is by drawing some parallels beween human success and marketing success gleaned from the well-known self improvement book: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

In the beginning of this book Stephen Covey outlines that all success literature over the last 2 centuries can be broken into two approaches to achieving success. One of these approaches should be considered primary, and the other secondary.

Character Ethic: This is the primary way to achieve success. It would be an approach based on principle based solutions. Covey calls this the “inside-out approach.” Meaning that if you focus on the key characters that make up who you actually are—such as honesty, integrity, creativity etc.—and as you work to improve yourself success will naturally follow.

Personality Ethic: This is the secondary approach. Often you could define these as quick fixes, superficial or even instant gratification. These are the appearance driven tactics you find in self-help books that only focus on the surface of who you really are. They can gain you short term success, but often wean off and deter your overall success in the long run.

While approaches to gaining success under the personality ethic are valid, they really only have long term value when they are utilized by a person who has mastered his character and established a personality rooted in strong value-based principles.

The Marketing Parallel

So it is with a website. No matter how many links you build (personality ethic), and how flashy your website looks—it’s long term success (traffic, leads, sales etc.) and sustainability of that success can only be secured if you first focus on the character of your website.

What this means is if you focus on your websites internal content strategy (character ethic) by applying the below value based principles to establish a well thought out strategy the longevity of your website will be secured.

Here is a quick mind map of what typically should branch off of these values and develop into your content marketing strategy:

And if you were to sequence these in order of priority I would lay them out as follows:

In the end, links are only as valuable as the website you pass them to. To put it in other words, no one cares if the directions you got to a party were great if the party isn’t any good.

As you focus on these core principles that make up a quality content marketing strategy I suggest approaching the plan with 3 specifics:

1. Measurable Goals
2. Target Audience
3. Target Keywords

As you approach these 3 things look at how they apply to the characteristics that make up an ideal content strategy by asking questions like:

2. Put People First

As you cater a content strategy to your specific audience or customer you will achieve higher success in content marketing. People enjoy making a connection. Understand the type of people your website is most directed toward and put these people first by ensuring you build a website with content that is:

Easy:

There is no doubt that people like easy. Which means as soon as the user opens a browser they are looking for a simple process.

• Building content that is optimized will ensure people can easily find your website
• Creating a logical navigation with clear taxonomy means people will easily be able to locate what they are looking for
• Integrating the right social network sharing capabilities in the right places makes sharing you website with others easy

Entertaining:

People love to be entertained. From the wording in your copy to the design to specific media used on the page each part of content is an opportunity to entertain your visitor in one way or another. As you plan your content, look to marry your brand with some form of entertainment that speaks to the targeted audience. And no matter the audience that entertainment will be most delivered best through a combination of:

• Remarkable graphics
• Spectacular videos
• Engaging content

Educational:

Just as much as we all love to have entertainment handed to us, we are drawn to learn more. The informational form of content is often one of the greatest for SEO purposes as well. Look at the questions your industry is currently asking and seek a unique way to deliver the right answers to the web.

3. Nitty Gritty SEO

Once your content is quality in terms of design and user experience then look to basic SEO implementations to ensure the nitty gritty is in order:

Titles:

Page titles are placed within the <head> area of the source code and should:

• Be between 65-70 characters typically
• Contain branding somewhere in the title
• Use 1-2 keyword phrases that are most relevant to the page (don’t overdo this)
• Read naturally (not spammy)
• Inform the searcher what they will find as they click through

Here are various acceptable formats to approach your page titles:

<title>Branding: Page Title With Keyword Here</title>

<title>Keyword Here In Title With Branding Included In Middle</title>

<title>Page Title & Keyword Inclusion Here | Branding</title>

Headings:

Your page headings <h1> are given more prominence and importance that paragraph content <p> by search engines. This means that the keywords and phrases used within headings are considered indicators as to the pages relevance. In approaching the use of your page headings you should:

• Not sacrifice true headings for keywords
• Use the most important/relevant key phrases naturally in the most prominent heading (the <h1>)
• Use supportive or variant phrases in subheadings (<h2> through <h6>)
• Not overuse headings on the page in an attempt to optimize for keywords

Content Placement:

Body content (or words) should be integrated into nearly every area of your website. Search engines view this as quality, and users benefit from it. Words on a page are not placed their solely for search engine optimization purposes. If they are, you have got it all wrong. The content you use should:

• Explain each page
• Direct the visitor
• Be placed both above and below the fold
• Be part of the design, not separate from it

Keyword Use:

Keyword Placement

Using keywords and variants of those keywords within the content is an integral part of making your website findable. Do not concern yourself with using the phrases a certain amount of times. In fact, using keywords correctly on a page will often happen naturally and without intention.

In approaching your content creating for a web page it is best to write the content first to be readable, purposeful and succinct. After this is done, review the content to determine if the correct key terms have been used. If they have not revise as needed.

Images:

One of the most under utilized areas of a website for optimization are images and graphics. In the placing of your images there are two opportunities for optimization for a topic:

• Alternate Text
• File Name

Navigation:

To correctly optimize a website navigation the keywords you are targeting for each individual page must be common knowledge among all those touching the development. Typically this is referred to as establishing keyword mapped URLs. To ensure you navigation is best optimized it must be:

• Crawlable to search engines
• Contain a logical taxonomy

4. Stay Active

Beautifully designed static pages will become stagnant if you don’t have active content regularly supporting your websites relevance to major search terms and pushing visitors to landing pages. A major factor enabling web properties to gain increasingly more search engine real estate is active content production.

The idea is that you need to keep your website up-to-date and interesting both for people and for search engines by:

• Creating discussions about industry news
• Updating audience with business news
• Niche guides
• Case studies
• Instructional blog posts
• Videos
• Infographics

Above all else, the best way to ensure you content is active is to have a schedule laid out and broken down to the week or days if needed. Often this is referred to as an editorial calendar. Itemizing the content piece’s you plan to publish will help you look at everything with a bird’s eye, ruling out overuse of a specific topic or type of media. A well planned out content calendar successfully integrates with other marketing initiatives as well. For most internal blogs I find laying out a 12 month editorial calendar is best.

5. Don’t Overdo It

Over optimization is an increasingly detrimental issue in search marketing. It is very common for professionals to latch on to one specific strategy or become accustomed to a few singular approaches that, if done over a long period, can in turn deter the websites performance. While over-optimization has always been an issue, with the latest algorithm updates from Google, this has been publicly announced as a target.

Stay Away From Over-Optimization

There are many forms in which over optimization can creep into your websites SEO campaign, but looking specifically at your content on-site there 3 items to watch out for:

• No content above the fold
• Overuse of exact match anchor text internal links
• Overuse of keywords within page titles

Your Content Strategy Checklist

And if all else fails, here is a quick checklist of major items every great content strategy consists of:

What is your thought on this content strategy? Anything you would like to add? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

You can also view the recording of my webinar on this subject by clicking here

View full post on SEO.com » Blog

Martin McNulty, from Forward3D

• Don’t try to attribute your way out of a rubbish marketing campaign. If your marketing is rubbish no attribution model will fix that.
• Modelling is not measuring – it’s about statistics and odds.
• Concentrate on what you can control – it’s all very well finding out the volume of search depends on cloud cover, but you can’t control the weather so you can’t do anything about it.
• Some companies will get most conversions from just one click – there’s not much point doing attribution modelling if it’s only for a couple of conversions.

Helen Southgate, from BSkyB

• Attribution has flaws:
  • People buy and research on many devices, and you can’t track them between these – this is only going to get worse in the future
  • Tracking is based on cookies, and assumes one person only has one cookie.
• There are several objectives:
  • Want to understand advertising and justify spend.
  • Want to prove worth of the brand.
  • Want to understand customer journey and message differently depending on what stage the customer is in.
• At Sky they’re using a staged approach:
  • Getting all the data sorted (so everything can be meaningfully compared)
  • Working out the objectives of the stakeholders
  • Get top line information – what the channels are doing
  • Look at different media partners, keywords – deeper level stuff
  • Test different combinations of different channels, and different ads at different stages

David Richards, from ZenithOptimedia

• Attribution does provide a wealth of insight.
  • Generics can influence people and push them to the brand
  • Look at different behaviour of people from different sources.
• But it isn’t a silver bullet.
  • You should only do it if it makes sense for your business.
  • There are lots of things you can fix before it’s worthwhile doing attribution modelling (such as getting the best website possible)
• We’re missing so many things, such as TV and radio advertising, or the effect of competitors’ advertising pushing generic searches.

Tom Cull, from Carat Manchester

• There are two levels to attribution modelling
  • The macro scale (with econometrics) – for looking at the channel mix
  • The micro scale (with clicks and conversions) – for optimising at a finer level
• There’s no single standard model. Tom starts with a standard model and customises for each client as they get more data.
• Beware the “so what?” trap: some clients ask for attribution data but then don’t do anything with them. Take action based on your data.
  • Eliminate non-converters
  • Change the channel mix
• Build an engagement model, based on on-site activity, and feed that into the attribution model
• Process has to be collaborative – you have to involve all the right client-side data holders.
• Don’t rely solely on attribution modelling – the tools are getting better but the data are getting worse. You could optimise yourself out of important keywords your model can’t assign the correct value to. Accept the limitations of the data.

From the Q&A

How do you choose the right model? Martin starts with big chunks of data and working out the relationships between them, and doesn’t get more complicated. He suggests looking at Google Analytics with different attribution models and seeing if there’s a difference between them.

How do you line up everyone in a large organisation? Helen said that it was a challenge, but she got buy-in by having an unbiased and holistic view of attribution, and sold it as it could drive a lot more high quality sales.

Doesn’t last click work best for many real world situations? “Yes”, said Martin. Helen said that it was still worth looking at last click attribution, but using the more complicated models could help understand and optimise.

To round things up, the panel were asked for a single recommendation:

• Martin – Keep it simple.
• Helen – Know your objectives.
• David – Work with the things you can change today.
• Tom – Don’t fall into the “so what?” trap. Don’t do attribution unless you’re prepared to do things on the back of it.

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Top Takeaways from the Search Firestarters Event on Attribution

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We could have ‘spun’ the information that it’s very unlikely we’ll see competing browsers in ARM edition of Windows 8, explaining that the difficulties make it the same as a ‘ban’…

…But we respect the fact that all (3?) of our readers come here for the truth on these topics, and only dirty laundry needs a spin cycle.

Where else is FireFox ‘banned’?

ChromeOS ? Yep!

iOS ? Yessir!

So why would Firefox/Mozilla come out today and only complain there’s a ‘ban’ on Firefox for Windows 8 ARM Edition?

Well from what I can tell, they never did, and the ‘b-word’ was all ‘spin’ by a very annoying technology news site that keeps amazing us with bad headlines and horribly inaccurate publications.

The TRUTH is that it will be VERY hard for any company to get approval for a browser running in Windows 8 ARM Edition because it’s not just ‘another version’ of Windows, it’s a Mobile OS with very clear goals that make it unique.

First of all is memory handling and battery use. By now we should all understand that you can’t deploy programs coded for x86 operating systems and expect them to sip carefully on resources like batteries and memory without some major changes.

Since ARM is aimed at ‘portable’ we can also expect people to seek more privacy and security on these devices. Allowing any-old-app onto the OS won’t happen. You’ve had to have a certificate to publish your apps on Microsoft’s mobile operating systems since the very first days of Windows Mobile, and that will not change any time soon.

If Microsoft wants to protect the quality and end user experience of their mobile products, locking down risky third party software clearly is one of the best ways for them to do it.

This is in no way a ‘ban’ on applications, and Microsoft admits that they are willing to help developers reach a quality standard that will permit them to publish to this new mobile platform.

On the plus side, I was tossing out some rather negative feelings about Microsoft’s investments in technical news sites, and this latest fumble leaves me with some doubts as to who’s invested in whom. Either that or this oft mentioned news source is chock full of people who not only don’t know what’s going on but they don’t even know the hand that feeds them? Crazy.

View full post on Beanstalk’s SEO News Blog

Top 10 Myths About Online MarketingPost from: Quality SEO Services & Link Building Services As a business owner, everyone wants to be online, market their site there and crack a sale with each visit on their website. But does everyone seriously undertake what it takes to be successful online? Or do you get swayed by [...] View full post on SEO Blog – Quantum SEO Labs

After a relatively long wait, Google announced today that they have launched an update to their Google Plus iPhone app. As I type this post, my phone seems to be taking its own time in downloading the update which gives me the impression that this particular update is a fairly significant one. In fact, Google seem to almost want the Google plus app to be part of your normal day to day experience by stressing that “we’re not interested in a mobile or social experience that’s just smaller. We’re embracing the sensor-rich smartphone (with its touchable screen and high-density display), and transforming Google+ into something more intimate, and more expressive”.

The most significant line in their announcement to me, was their justification for the iPhone app upgrade, “today’s new iPhone app is an important step in this direction—toward a simpler, more beautiful Google”. I’m not sure about you, but I feel this is probably the biggest hint Google has publicly dropped of their efforts in moving toward a more  ’social’ and a more ‘mobile-centric’ strategy for their future.

So what areas have they improved on?
The stream – the upgrade has just completed on my mobile phone and I must say, it certainly is “a feast for the eyes”.  I certainly will give them a relatively high score for ‘first impressions’. Content that’s displayed on your stream not only include people’s posts in text but also incorporate elegance with regards to design. Google plus certainly looks a lot more stylish than it did before, and they do mean it when they say, “whether you post photos or articles or text, we’re making ‘em look gooood. We’re adding crisper fonts, larger profile pics and a friendlier homescreen. We’re making the stream easier to scan, and easier on the eyes with overlays, gradients and other visual elements”.

Hangouts on your iPhone – in addition to the above improvements, a great step forward is the ability to utilise hangouts directly via your iPhone. For someone whose closest friends are spread across five different time zones – be it Orlando, Oxford, Colombo, Singapore or Melbourne – the flexibility to perform hangouts virtually anywhere in the world is a significant improvement in terms of convenience and connectivity.

If there is any criticism of the app, at least for now, is the fact that the +1′s and the number of comments tend to go unnoticed on some posts due to the colour of the buttons.

Also, I wish Google plus would let me upload more than one image at a time. It is quite annoying that images need to be uploaded one by one.

Overall though, I think this is quite a momentous and significant step toward a more social Google. A Google, who is trying to shun away from the perception of an ‘algorithm driven’ company to a more ‘humanistic company’ and is taking bold steps in connecting with their users at the most basic of “sensory” levels.

The iPhone update is rolling out now to the App Store (version 2.0.0.5888), and according to Google, the Android update is coming out in a few weeks which includes some “extra surprises”. Google claim that the new mobile app is “an app with sense and soul”, but what are your thoughts on the new mobile app? Have you tried it out yet and what are it’s features you like or dislike most? Feel free to share your thoughts with us below.

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. New Google Mobile app – an app with soul

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With the newest Google algorithm changes, penalties have been taken on many websites for unnatural and artificial linkbuilding tactics.  This update hit websites that used black hat SEO practices particularly hard, but it also affected many seemingly appropriate linkbuilding strategies. Because of these changes, careful, strategic, and natural linkbuilding is more important than ever. In the first part of this blog series by Rebecca, she talked about building natural links through event sponsorship, answering questions, holding contests, attending industry trade shows, and using public relations tactics. Let’s take a look at some additional ways to build great natural links.

Product Reviews

If you’d like to get the word out about a new products, reaching out to bloggers for a product review is a great idea. Many blogs regularly review products, services, and events, and offering a free item (or one at a significant discount) offers excellent incentive for bloggers to write about your new product. You can guide them to use the anchor text that you specify in order to maximize your links.

Another way to get links on product reviews is to search for existing reviews. Many blogs, such as The Impulsive Buy, specifically focus on reviewing brand new products found in the store. Once you find a blog post that already makes mention of your product, create a friendly and personalized email to contact the blogger about adding in a link. Setting Google Alerts is a handy way to monitor mentions of your brand, or products in your specific niche.

Pinterest

If your website is heavily dependent on pictures of clothes, design, beauty, entertainment, fashion, jewelry, photography, or food and recipes, your site is a natural fit for image sharing on Pinterest. Pinterest can generate great exposure for your brand through high quality, aesthetically pleasing photos of your products. It’s a great way to build a visual representation of your brand, find new followers who are interested in your products, and increase authority.

The trends in search engine optimization have been leading toward more social interaction, and Pinterest is a great way to communicate with people outside of your regular circles of interaction. The links on Pinterest became “nofollow” in March 2012, but that does not mean the links lack any value. Click-throughs on images on Pinterest are a great way to drive traffic to your site, especially now that Pinterest is the third most popular social network, behind Facebook and Twitter. In order for Pinterest to add value to your company, you need to be an online social butterfly. Be social, like, repin and comment on other users’ pins, and fly around to different pages to socialize with relevant users. Accounts that appear spammy will not gain a following like a comprehensive, personalized and organized Pinterest profile.

Legitimate Blog Networks

Before the changes of Panda, private blog networking websites like BuildMyRank.com, Unique Article Wizard, and SEOLinkVine were often used to bulk up link portfolios. In the past month, many of the links from these sites have either been deindexed or penalized. Does this mean that putting effort into any “blog network” site is a waste of time? Absolutely not.

There are many blog networks that are well-respected, moderated, and completely legitimate opportunities for linkbuilding. One of the most popular and robust blog networks is BlogHer. The site is geared toward women and divided up into several niches, such as family, sports, health, style, and tech. BlogHer operates an ad network to help bloggers monetize their blogs. They have stringent guidelines for what is posted on the site, where the links direct to, and have a no-tolerance policy for abuse and plagiarism. I have been a member of the BlogHer network for several years, and have not only found excellent content, but have created friendships and relationships with many bloggers within the network.

To join BlogHer, you just need to register for the website with your blog’s URL. Although the site has a feminine focus, there are male bloggers one the site as well. BlogHer does accept guest posted content, but they show preference to bloggers who are active in the network. Besides BlogHer, there are many other niche-specific blog networks. For instance, Entrepreneur.com accepts guest blog posts, is considered authoritative, and has a robust staff of industry experts on entrepreneurship. Search for networks within your niche or industry where you can interact with other users to gain credibility.

Testimonials

One great way to get the name of your brand out is through testimonials. Businesses love to get positive feedback, and asking them if they’d like a testimonial for their website is an excellent way to get your name and link on their site. They offer benefits to both the one who testifies, as well as the recipient. Testimonials are often placed on popular or important pages of a website, such as a homepage, which would be otherwise impossible with a standard link request. You can leverage existing relationships you have and ask if the site is interested in your feedback, and you will have a better chance getting a link by offering them something valuable.

What are some other tactics you use to build links using existing marketing strategies? I would love to hear your comments on how your linkbuilding has evolved, especially over the last few weeks since the most recent Google Panda and Penguin webspam updates.

View full post on SEO.com » Blog

Britain to Block Porn Sites

The Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron is reported to be announcing "network-filtering plan" that would target pornographic websites.

Initially the campaign received little support from the Prime Minister and was met with criticism from digital right groups and a variety of industry bodies, the movment is being spearheaded by The Daily Mail and MP Claire Perry

MP Claire Perry states that this is not censorship. Plans are to have ISP users being forced to opt-in in order to receive anything rated as adult content. “There is a ‘hands off our internet’ movement that sees any change in how access is delivered as censorship,” she said. “We are not being prudish, but we just think the current method of blocking that material is broken."

Feds Return Seized Music Site

Feds seized a popular Hip-Hop music site on assertions from the Recording Industry Association of America of copyright infringements and that the site was linking to four pre-release music tracks.

Control was relinquished to the owners of Dajaz1.com after 13 months with Feds unable to produce sufficient evidence to warrant any civil or criminal charges.

Feds state that the inability to obtain evidence was largely due in part to apparent recording industry delays in confirming infringements according to the court records. The site was returned without explanation or apology.

Although the Internet has been available en masses for over 20 years, we are still far from reaching any kind of consensus over these issues. Certainly conflicts will continue to arise over copyright infringement, censorship, privacy and net neutrally.

The conversations that arise from these ongoing debates are necessary to shape the future of the Internet and many more discussions are required before we can reach an acceptable balance of protection for the industry and the artists it represents and the freedom and exchange of uncensored information.

View full post on Beanstalk’s SEO News Blog

This was quite easily the best search event I have ever attended (and there’s been quite a few now!), the sessions were packed full of great content – once you’ve been to a lot of conferences you find yourself skipping quite a few sessions, but this conference was the exception – and every session was full to the back of the room! But as is normally the way, the highlight was the networking – you really could just sell tickets for “an audience with Greg Boser” show! Getting the chance to meet everyone before the event at Mike’s SEO BBQ was a great way to kick-off the conference – and the intimate feel of the event by having a limited number of 125 attendees and all staying at the amazing Standard Hotel in Downtown LA with a free bar and rooftop party is always an appreciated nice touch!

Anyway getting into the content, I’ve organised my tweets and notes so that hopefully you can pickup a couple of useful tips even if you weren’t able to attend the event:

Google

• A writer who has the biggest reach is who @GregBoser recommends hiring. This person can influence people in search result …
• Start removing title tags and see how Google rewrites them. Let Google give you hints on what they think is best. @Gregboser
• Great tip from @GregBoser 450 character descriptions give #SEO experts more control over SERP descriptions

Conversion Rate Optimisation

• Use descriptive words on buttons – ‘create a gift’, not ‘buy now’ @hnshah
• Design for conversions tips; CROToolkit, lightbox promotions, cross-promo ad banners, promote top posts @hnshah
• Stick to basics on Twitter, share great, relevant & interesting content. @KISSmetrics grown to 88,000 followers @hnshah
• Use aweber & WordPress for drip email marketing on blogs @hnshah
• CRO tools; whichtestwon.com, usertesting.com, 99designs.com for landing pages, visualwebsiteoptimizer.com @hnshah
• Great CRO landing page examples; RipFire, DollarShaveClub @jasonnazar
• Can also have social proof on purchase page…’verified by’, better business bureau, etc.@jasonnazar
• Use social proof CRO – client logos (e.g. visualwebsiteoptimizer.com), as seen on, customer testimonials @jasonnazar
• Call-to-action; size, colour & text biggest CRO quick win. Dark forest green button converts well – agree, green means go!  @jasonnazar
• Single biggest CRO tip; headline most important text on page – not call-to-action or on-page text. Great example; Square @jasonnazar

On-Site SEO

• Evaluate those low performing pages. Good reminder to either optimize them, or 301 to higher value sections. @alanbleiweiss
• Are your highest visited/stickiest pages converting? A/B test your call-to-action & content wording. @alanbleiweiss
• In Page Analytics in GA recommended by @alanbleiweiss to determine phrases people find relevant, based on internal CTRs
• 400% increase in organic visits shown by @alanbleiweiss as example of why you don’t need to look at granular kw level
• Smart bet is keyword data could go completely & not provided to =100% – interesting prediction by @alanbleiweiss
• ‘SEO is organic ad writing’ great quote by @aimclear
• @aimclear As far as KWs go, (not set) means the URL, GATC , or AdWords wasn’t set up correctly.
• ‘Within analytics work on the short-tail first because it helps you understand the long-tail.’ @aimclear
• GA not provided tip; segment landing page data by keyword & map to GWT to compare no of kw visits @aimclear
• @alanbleiweiss: So many finally validating what i was advocating last spring abt schema as the 2012 big opportunity in SEO

Link Building

• Buy traditional advertising then use that relationship to get free editorial links that last forever. @RavenJon
• Build private lists & set auto reminders to interact w/ people you want to connect w/ on Twitter @RavenJon
• Position yourself or your client as an expert source. Recommends @helpareporter to help them find you @RavenJon
• FullContact, BuzzStream & Tout recommended by @RavenJon to find contact details & manage relationships
• Great answer from @jamies to my question; how do you value how much a link is worth? Measure attention & traffic it generates
• @jamies Is tearing up , fantastic realtime ideas, highlighting TheVerge CMS, also likes AtlanticWire
• Great tip by @jamies: Google Analytics Query Explorer can be used to map traffic alongside links in @seomoz

Content Marketing / Infographics

• Infographic tips; work with a great publishing partner, capitalise on previous success & tap proven ideas @danieltynski
• Serve needs of business & potential customers, once you’ve targeted audience, by creating remarkable content @danieltynski
• Build a content team: Community Mgr, Content Strategist, Moderators, Guest Authors, Video Producers, Graphic Designers
• 43% of online news is shared via social networks, 27% of ppl who share are frequent sharers & responsible for 87% of shares

Blogging / Cultivating Visibility

• Email marketing tips from @chrisbrogan Brevity – 250 words max, don’t start with view in browser, don’t use dontreply@ address
• Nice tip from @copyblogger @chrisbrogan unsubscribe your annoying email subscribers, e.g. grammar nazi’s who always reply!
• Plain text emais have better delivery rates, take people to landing pages, healthy ratio of value vs promotion @copyblogger
• ‘We don’t buy lists, we build audiences.’ ~Brian Clark @copyblogger
• ‘never invest in the carpet, invest in the people who are walking on it!’ @chrisbrogan
•  ’Don’t be an artist. Be a business person who makes art.’ – @chrisbrogan
• There’s so many bloggers out there, but lack of real quality in most niches – still lots of big opportunities @copyblogger
• Thanks for the @copyblogger 10 landing page commandments @JasonNazar

WordPress

• Understand WP version numbers: .1 is a major release, .2 is a security update @yoast

Trusted Recommendations & New PR

• ‘always take your work seriously, don’t take yourself seriously’ great advice from @soniasimone
• Best pitches in the world are 7 words that describe exactly what you’re pitching @petershankman
• We tend to think more ass in chair time produces more. Take breaks. @soniasimone
• I never write unless I’ve just gotten a workout in. Working out spawns creativity. @petershankman
• Don’t just sent out press releases, have conversations @soniasimone
• ‘if you’re not making money from it, you’re doing it wrong’ on PR @petershankman
• ‘Personal recommendation is the new PR’ – absolutely true! @misswetapatel

There’s also been some great write-ups on the sessions, checkout the BlueGlass blog where Kelsey Libert did a great job on covering the key points from each. And if anyone else has tips to add or questions – please feel free to do so in the comments and I’ll keep an eye on these.

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. 50 Tips & Takeaways from BlueGlass LA

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On the 18th of April, Bing UK, launched the “Bing is for doing” campaign to reach out to their users in order to discover what people really want to be doing. From those lifelong unfulfilled ambitions to those times when they’ve discovered something through a search engine that they’d love to do but think they’d never get the chance to.

The idea behind the campaign is pretty simple; since most people turn to search engines in order to arm themselves with the necessary insights and commentary to make informed choices, Bing decided they’d actually go a step further in offering you the opportunity to experience what you’ve found or discovered on a search engine.

In an email response, a spokesperson for Bing said: “We wanted to ask people of all ages what it is that they really want to be doing – whether that be travelling the world, learning a new skill or fulfilling a lifelong ambition.”

Bing has already received a significant number of submissions: “We’re really enjoying reading through people’s wants and as part of the campaign, the team will be looking to pick out a few select submissions with the view to making them actually happen.”

So what type of submissions are they looking for? According to Bing, “the submissions won’t necessarily be the most unique or the most outrageous – it’ll be a mix of things that make people laugh, cry and most of all make us want to get out there and do – life is there to be enjoyed and Bing wants to help people make the most of it.”

For more information, including examples of some of the submissions that have already got the folks at Bing thinking and video straw polls from all over the UK, visit the Bing UK Facebook page.

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Bing is For Doing – What do You Want to do Today?

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Top 10 budget friendly DIY SEO tips..And Why They Are ImportantPost from: Quality SEO Services & Link Building Services Of late, you can see search engine optimization (SEO) playing a key role in generating traffic flow, brand awareness and online advertising for different business owners. Small and big businesses using different SEO techniques are now [...] View full post on SEO Blog – Quantum SEO Labs

How about doing the same thing to the best filtered search engines available?

Well someone got curious and made the million short search engine.

What this new service does is remove a specific # of search results and show you the remainder.

I became immediately curious about a few things:

• Where are they getting their crawl data from?
• What are they doing to searches where there’s only a few hundred results?
• Where is the revenue stream? I see no ads?

Given the lack of advertising I was expecting them to be pulling search data from another site?

There’s no way they are pulling from Bing/Yahoo, there are 14+ sites paying for better spots than we’ve earned on Bing for our terms..

And while the top 10 list looks a bit like DuckDuckGo, we’re seemingly banned from their rankings, and not at #6 at all. It’s funny when you look at their anti-spam approach and then look at the #1 site for ‘seo services’ on DDG. It’s like a time machine back to the days of keyword link spam. Even more ironic is that we conform to DDGs definition of a good SEO:

We know the data isn’t from Google either, we have the #1 seat for ‘seo services’ on Google and maintain that position regularly.

So what’s going on?! This is the same company that gave us the ‘Find People on Plus‘ tool and clearly they know how to monetize a property?

My guess is that they are blending results from multiple search engines, and likely caching a lot of the data so it’d be very hard to tell who’s done the heavy lifting for them?

All that aside, it’s rare to see a search engine that blatantly gives you numbered SERPs and for now MillionShort is, on the left side-bar, showing numbered positions for keywords. That’s sort of handy I guess.

You can also change how many results to remove, so if your search is landing you in the spam bucket, then try removing less results. If your search always sucks, and the sites you want to see in the results are on the right, you’ve apparently found a search phrase that isn’t spammed! Congrats!

Weak one: Google Drive

Well my enthusiasm for Google Drive just flew out the window on my second week using it.

Beanstalk’s SEO News Blog