SEO Roundup: September 5, 2014

Dear blog readers, Welcome to your issue of the SEO Advantage newsletter. You'll find access to our articles covering the latest industry news as well as tips and knowledge you can put to use right away. As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Just click through to comment, hit reply to email us, or call 1-800-366-1639 to speak to one of our online marketing specialists directly. And have a great month! SEO Roundup: September 5, 2014 2014-09-05 13:00:25-04 There’s a fantastic tutorial this week from the folks at Linkerati on how Google Trends can help with research and tracking industry trends. While the author makes the point that the data isn’t quite enough to plan a full campaign around, he also does a wonderful job of detailing exactly what you can discover, and how that information can be used. And for more great in-depth learning, check out this piece on evaluating the quality of content. We all like to think that the content we’re producing is good, but we owe it to our clients to look a little deeper when we can, and the tips in the article will help you do just that.… Continue Reading Read more... Google Writes Off Authorship 2014-09-06 13:53:03-04 Three years ago Google announced authorship to eliminate spam and duplicate content, and offer high quality content created by a niche and industry authority in search results. It seemed the search giant intended for people populating web properties with content to play a pivotal role in how Google treated search results. After all, they bombarded us with multiple videos on how to use authorship markup on websites. They also added features, like Google Plus circle counts, and authorship impression data to Webmaster Tools.  Google seemed to value authorship more and more as time went on. I was among the SEO professionals who scrambled to build a Google+ account, post an author photo and bio so that I could be visible in Google search results and achieve the best ranking.… Continue Reading Read more... AdSense User Loses $46,000 to Google Punishment 2014-09-08 18:27:27-04 Idris Sami, 19, is a French-Moroccan entrepreneur who created a website called MesTextos that allows French-speakers to text for free. It's a great thing for people who don't use a cell phone or don't want mobile data costs. Alternative messaging services are popular in Europe, so Sami's niche business is fantastic. Sami's website was using Google’s AdSense system. AdSense allows webmasters to display Google powered search ads and get a percentage of the revenues. So many users were clicking on MesTextos' ads that by December 2013 Sami’s Google account had earned a whopping $46,000! But as an AdSense partner, if you don’t use ads on your site exactly as Google instructs, you will be severely punished.… Continue Reading Read more... Social Wednesday: September 10, 2014 2014-09-10 16:55:22-04 Don't you just love Wednesday? The work week is half over. It's time to plan fun weekend activities. When you take a break from daydreaming about weekend festivities, check out social media's best marketers in this week's Social Wednesday. You'll meet social media's brightest stars who share solutions, tips and tools for success. Mandy Edwards (@memktgservices) caught my attention on Twitter and it's not because she's a UGA alum whose profile and cover photos include the UGA football colors, although that's part of it. After 11 years of living in Georgia (I'm from New YorkState originally), I've become a diehard UGA Bulldogs fan.… Continue Reading Read more... SEO Roundup: September 12, 2014 2014-09-12 13:58:04-04 As a content developer myself, I admit I may have somewhat of a conflict of interest in preaching about the importance of creating quality web content in your SEO strategy, but at least I'm not alone in my conviction. A newly released Google search rankings study from SearchMetrics has declared that quality content creation is "no longer an addition to, but is the main focus of, SEO." And they've got data to back it up. It shouldn't be all that surprising then that content marketing topics seemed to be all the rage this week. From getting in touch with your funny side to discovering the voice of the customer, take a few minutes to check out these helpful links on rethinking your content marketing strategy, as well as these other well-written articles and SEO updates from around the web.… Continue Reading Read more... Social Wednesday: September 17, 2014 2014-09-17 18:56:27-04 There's just something special about Wednesday. The woes of Monday have come and gone. The weekend, full of relaxation and play, is within reach, and that calls for a celebration. At SEO-e, we are all about celebrating social media's marketing geniuses in "Social Wednesday." We find online marketing's brightest stars that you can follow to learn about the latest technologies, tricks and tips. Meandering through Twitter-space I came upon Kevin Lane Skarritt (@skarritt), Chief Peep (his words, not mine!) and CEO of Flock Marketing, a 19-year-old agency that teaches small businesses innovative brand and social media engagement strategies. As if his clever cover photo featuring Grumpy Cat is not enough reason to check out his Twitter account, he tweets about social media—from tips to news to strange but true stories.… Continue Reading Read more... SEO Roundup: September 26, 2014 2014-09-26 14:07:36-04  The juiciest bit of news from the SEO world this week was Google's announcement of yet another Panda update, which is supposed to add a filter that will help small and medium-sized sites rank higher. The rollout began earlier this week and will continue into next. For anyone who was penalized in the last Panda update, this means a chance for redemption—if the right changes were made. Here's what Google had to say about the update: Based on user (and webmaster!) feedback, we've been able to discover a few more signals to help Panda identify low-quality content more precisely. This results in a greater diversity of high-quality small- and medium-sized sites ranking higher, which is nice.… Continue Reading Read more...   Read all the latest blog articles   About SEO Advantage SEO Advantage, Inc. is an online marketing /search engine optimization firm that helps businesses turn their web presence into a powerful revenue generation medium. Our clients enjoy dominance on Google, Yahoo and Bing through a suite of unique pay-for-performance search engine optimization and online marketing services implemented by a multidisciplinary team of SEO engineers, copywriters, and web designers. You'll find us referenced in books such as Writing Web-Based Advertising Copy to Get the Sale and the BusinessWeek bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR, as well as the popular ebook The Small Business Blogging Blueprint. Find out more today. Visit www.seo-advantage.com, call 1-800-366-1639 or email us here.   Connect with us! Facebook.seoadvantage.com Twitter.seoadvantage.com LinkedIn.seoadvantage.com 4644 West Gandy Blvd., Suite 4-444, Tampa, FL 33611 USA

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Social Wednesday: September 3, 2014

Dear blog readers, Welcome to your issue of the SEO Advantage newsletter. You'll find access to our articles covering the latest industry news as well as tips and knowledge you can put to use right away. As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Just click through to comment, hit reply to email us, or call 1-800-366-1639 to speak to one of our online marketing specialists directly. And have a great month! Social Wednesday: September 3, 2014 2014-09-03 17:29:49-04 While cruising through the social media jungle in search of the world’s best marketers for Social Wednesday, I ventured past a Google Facts tweet that Facebook was down 10 minutes and lost more than $220,000 in advertising revenue. Yikes! When online marketing goes wrong, a viable solution is usually in reach—you just have to know where to look. In today’s Social Wednesday, we feature top-shelf online marketers that share solutions, tips and tools for success. Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick), a self-proclaimed Search Geek, is the CEO of Rusty Brick, a New York company that sells custom web software including CRM applications, advanced e-commerce, and web-based business software.… Continue Reading Read more...   Read all the latest blog articles   About SEO Advantage SEO Advantage, Inc. is an online marketing /search engine optimization firm that helps businesses turn their web presence into a powerful revenue generation medium. Our clients enjoy dominance on Google, Yahoo and Bing through a suite of unique pay-for-performance search engine optimization and online marketing services implemented by a multidisciplinary team of SEO engineers, copywriters, and web designers. You'll find us referenced in books such as Writing Web-Based Advertising Copy to Get the Sale and the BusinessWeek bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR, as well as the popular ebook The Small Business Blogging Blueprint. Find out more today. Visit www.seo-advantage.com, call 1-800-366-1639 or email us here.   Connect with us! Facebook.seoadvantage.com Twitter.seoadvantage.com LinkedIn.seoadvantage.com 4644 West Gandy Blvd., Suite 4-444, Tampa, FL 33611 USA

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SEO Roundup: August 8, 2014

Dear blog readers, Welcome to your issue of the SEO Advantage newsletter. You'll find access to our articles covering the latest industry news as well as tips and knowledge you can put to use right away. As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Just click through to comment, hit reply to email us, or call 1-800-366-1639 to speak to one of our online marketing specialists directly. And have a great month! SEO Roundup: August 8, 2014 2014-08-08 14:11:56-04 The fallout from Google’s Authorship changes continues to reverberate around the SEO world. Moz has a case study that includes some interesting theories about what might have been behind the change, but in the meantime it was discovered that Authorship stats have gone the way of photos. Then, someone noticed that Google+ posts themselves still show up in SERPS, with photos intact. It’s enough to make an online marketer a little dizzy! The consensus among the SEO community, however, seems to be that for the moment Authorship is still valid and worthwhile. Now let’s look at what else has happened in SEO and online marketing this week .… Continue Reading Read more... 5 Lessons to Take Away from Eye-Tracking Studies 2014-08-12 08:00:33-04 For marketers concerned that their web content is not performing to its maximum potential, eye-tracking software and heat maps can tell you where your visitors are looking when they view your website. There are currently 5 important eye-tracking studies that provide some insight into visitor's browsing patterns. These studies can help marketers design more efficient copy and graphics. 1.    Avoid "Dead Weight" with Visuals When assembling a landing page, you need to ensure the elements that "pop" to the viewer are the ones that matter most to your business and/or product. Moreover, you need to ensure that you aren't putting too much weight on the visuals that don't encourage customers to take action.… Continue Reading Read more... Marketing Lessons from Last Comic Standing's Final Three 2014-08-13 13:00:46-04 A good stand-up comic is inherently a marketer.  In addition to being funny, he or she has to create and successfully sell a brand. In fact, there are a lot of lessons we as marketers can learn from comedy, including a few from the remaining contestants on this season's Last Comic Standing. If you haven't been watching the show this season, you've missed one of the best so far. You can still catch the finale tomorrow night, and I highly recommend checking out previous episodes online. So many of the things the comics discuss with their judges and mentors translate directly to what we do in marketing, because we are both in the business of gaining buy-in from an audience.… Continue Reading Read more... SEO Roundup: August 15, 2014 2014-08-15 14:44:28-04 When I first told my friends and family that I was hired by an SEO company, all I got were blank stares and “Huh?'s.” Sure, the industry has come a long way in a few years and increasingly people are starting to at least recognize the term, but it still remains a relatively strange concept to a lot of folks. Looking back, I'm not even sure that I knew exactly what SEO fully entailed when I got started working at SEO Advantage (not sure that I do now either…). Part of the difficulty with explaining SEO to people is that it is constantly evolving.… Continue Reading Read more... AdWords Campaigns Forced to Use Close Variants 2014-08-19 16:35:46-04 I was enjoying a cup of coffee and perusing the latest Google news when I came across a Search Engine Land article reporting that as of late September, Google is taking away the AdWords advertiser’s ability to opt-out of close variants. The benefit without close variants is that you can bid differently on plurality and know exactly where your ads are being displayed. Plus, you can guarantee if a searcher used a specific phrase that it triggered an ad. Right now, each Adwords campaign has this setting activated by default, but it can be turned off on the campaign settings page.… Continue Reading Read more... Social Wednesday: August 20, 2014 2014-08-20 12:01:46-04 Do you know what day it is? Many of you likely gave a hearty cheer, "Hump Day!" and by golly it is, but here at SEO-e it's "Social Wednesday," an exciting new venture where we search the vast reaches of social media to profile its brightest marketing stars. Twitter's Stephen Greenwood (@TasteFaker) wears many hats in the marketing arena. He's an Analyst at GEICO and digital marketing professional for the Trillectro Music Festival. He recently wrote an article about how to use technology to grow and expand your non-tech event. Three years ago he and friends armed only with a couple of Macbooks started a music festival with no experience and no budget.… Continue Reading Read more... SEO Roundup: August 22, 2014 2014-08-22 14:24:50-04 We’ve been hearing a lot about negative SEO attacks lately, especially in light of the extortion e-mails some SEOs have been receiving. Thankfully, the folks at Linkarati have created a great tutorial to help you watch for and prevent negative SEO attacks. There’s a lot that makes our industry different, but I’d have to say that this sort of tactic is definitely among the more unique experiences online marketers face. Luckily the SEO community is on it, as always, so I’m sure we’ll see more tips and guides to help avoid and deal with these attacks in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here’s what else has been going on in the marketing world .… Continue Reading Read more... Social Wednesday: August 27, 2014 2014-08-27 14:36:44-04 It's Wednesday. The work week is nearly complete. While taking your midweek breather, check out SEO-e's "Social Wednesday" to meet social media's marketing mavens, up-and-comers and dynamos you want to follow for the best tips and tricks. Traversing through Twitterland I came across Christopher Penn (@cspenn) who is the Vice President of Marketing Technology at SHIFT Communications, an integrated PR agency. You'd think that would be enough to keep a person busy, but Penn is also a co-founder of PodCamp, a co-host of the Marketing Over Coffee podcast, and a professor of Advanced Social Media and Internet Marketing at the University of San Francisco online.… Continue Reading Read more... SEO Roundup: August 29, 2014 2014-08-29 13:00:02-04 Wouldn't it be great if we could see into the future? In a constantly evolving industry like SEO, this ability would be a nifty little trick indeed. Instead, it seems we're stuck with predictions that are about as accurate as weather forecasts. That's why I generally tend to be skeptical of articles entitled something like "6 Revelations that Will Change the Future of ___" and "How ___ Will Look in 20 Years." However, our friends over at Search Engine Land put together a great 3-part series where they asked 16 industry experts to discuss their thoughts on the future of SEO.… Continue Reading Read more...   Read all the latest blog articles   About SEO Advantage SEO Advantage, Inc. is an online marketing /search engine optimization firm that helps businesses turn their web presence into a powerful revenue generation medium. Our clients enjoy dominance on Google, Yahoo and Bing through a suite of unique pay-for-performance search engine optimization and online marketing services implemented by a multidisciplinary team of SEO engineers, copywriters, and web designers. You'll find us referenced in books such as Writing Web-Based Advertising Copy to Get the Sale and the BusinessWeek bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR, as well as the popular ebook The Small Business Blogging Blueprint. Find out more today. Visit www.seo-advantage.com, call 1-800-366-1639 or email us here.   Connect with us! Facebook.seoadvantage.com Twitter.seoadvantage.com LinkedIn.seoadvantage.com 4644 West Gandy Blvd., Suite 4-444, Tampa, FL 33611 USA

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