Feeling like you’re out of ideas of what to test next? The folks at Avalaunch Media have created an infographic designed to get you inspired. From asking questions to being funny, here are 26 ideas to consider:

The folks at WordStream have put together an excellent infographic covering 20 different ways that Google has a mobile presence. Even if you might not agree with WordStream’s assessment of how effective particular areas are, it’s a great guide for navigating the mobile world of Google.

Here’s the infographic (you can click to enlarge it):

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here, along with more explanation: Google for Mobile: How Google Makes Money from Mobile.

]]> http://searchengineland.com/infographic-googles-mobile-world-from-ads-to-apps-to-android-150827/feed 1 http://searchengineland.com/infographic-link-building-linkpocalypse-147351 http://searchengineland.com/infographic-link-building-linkpocalypse-147351#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2013 18:04:02 +0000 Search Engine Land Infographics http://searchengineland.com/?p=147351 If you want to succeed with gaining search traffic through SEO, building links is one of the most important ranking factors that can help you. But go too far, and the search police might crack down on you. How do you avoid a disaster?

To help, the folks at DNA created a ”Link Apocalypse” infographic summarizing some recent missteps in building links and the consequences, including Google even punishing itself for buying paid links (click to enlarge it):

A note about the first example. iAcquire is called a “gray-hat” firm (well, the “grey-hat” spelling is used). It’s unclear what a “gray hat” firm is supposed to be — one that does both black hat and white hat tactics? If so, that’s probably a fair assessment of iAcquire at the time.

iAcquire never claimed to be working with DBCC, but it was banned by Google soon after the DBCC situation emerged and later blogged about dropping paid links as part of its SEO process, which — assuming it’s doing no other things that violate Google’s guidelines — would make it a white hat firm.

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here: The Link Apocalypse. You can also learn more about some of the cases mentioned in our stories below:

• Google Penalizes Google Japan For Buying Links
• New York Times Exposes J.C. Penney Link Scheme That Causes Plummeting Rankings in Google
• Google’s Action Against Paid Links Continues: Overstock & Forbes Latest Casualties; Conductor Exits Brokering Business
• After Google Warning, Forbes Comes Oh So Close To Cleaning Up Its Paid Links
• Another Company Outed for Paid Links: Sequoia-Backed Milanoo
• New York Times Continues Paid Link Outing Stories, Looks At Online Flowers Industry
• 90 Days Later, J.C. Penney Regains Its Google Rankings
• What Can We Learn From The Latest Brand To Be Called Out For Paid Links?
• Google Lifts Ban On iAcquire; Company Blogs Of Being Reformed
• Google Reminds Webmasters: Selling Links Can Lead To PageRank Penalty
• Google Chrome’s Paid Link Penalty Now Lifted
• Google Launches “Penguin Update” Targeting Webspam In Search Results
• Will 2013 Bring A Paid Link Resurgence?
• Google’s Matt Cutts & Bing’s Duane Forrester On “Search Police” Panel At SMX West

These stats come from an infographic from the folks at Conductor on the SEO job industry, based on 1,500 job postings on Indeed.com and Payscale.com:

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here, along a downloadable guide to the job details behind the infographic: SEO Jobs Salary Guide.

The people at Alchemy Viral have created an infographic that covers a variety of things to keep in mind about how to better react to the growing number of mobile searches, including those being routed through Siri. Alchemy is a UK-based firm, hence the use of “optimisation” rather than the US English spelling:

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here, Seeking with Siri.

In the “Getting Along With Siri” section, the infographic says Siri draws from social services, but that seems to be a mistake. Siri can help people send information to services like Twitter and Facebook, but it doesn’t bring answers back from those.

Siri has recently expanded the number of sources it taps into, and search marketers should be looking to ensure they do well in these sources, as Siri is a new source of traffic from them. Our stories below have more about this, as well as mobile search in general.

Also, be sure you’re subscribed to our mobile search column and local search column for helpful information each week!

Related Articles

• Apple Siri To Add Sports, Restaurants, Reservations, Movies & App Search
• Local Search Cage Match: Google Vs. Apple Maps (And Siri)
• Apple Hires A Search Geek (From Amazon) To Improve Siri
• Still Stuck Behind Apple’s Doors: The New Google Search App
• Siri, Are You Taking Over Mobile Search?
• Mobile & The Disintermediation Of Traditional Search
• 3 Simple Steps To Get Siri & Her Friends To Talk Up Your Local Business
• 16 Differences Between Google Mobile & Desktop Search Results In 2012
• Does Google’s Mobile SEO Preference Change Mobile SEO Best Practices?
• Is Mobile Search Taking Over The Restaurant Space?
• 10 Simple Tips For Effective Mobile SEO
• 5 Things Businesses Need To Know About Apple Maps Right Now

The infographic explains that 134 million ads from 824,000 advertisers were stopped last year, a figure we’ve heard before, and highlights parts of the process used, automated systems, Google’s internal expert review and reports from outside the company:

Want the infographic yourself? You’ll find it here in PDF format.

Of course, the process isn’t perfect, perhaps most notably in that Google agreed last year to settle a dispute with the US Department Of Justice over illegal pharmaceutical ads. Google paid a $500 million fine and said the ads should never have been allowed to run.

This year, Google’s been trying to open up more about the ad screening process, with a blog post earlier this year about fighting bad ads and a video on keeping ads safe:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Behind The Scenes In Google’s Battle Against Bad Ads from us, also earlier this year, provides more behind-the-scenes information from Google, from an interview with David Baker, Google’s director of engineering for its advertising team.

Related Articles

• Google Disapproved 134M Ads And Disabled More Than 800K AdWords Accounts In 2011
• Google Settles DOJ Pharmacy Ad Investigation With $500 Million
• Google Tries to Reassure Brand Owners With New Anti-Counterfeiting Measures
• Valentine’s Day AdWords “War” Among Florists Highlights Another Google Challenge
• Question Of Whether It’s Legal To Use Trademarks As Keywords Revived On Appeal in Rosetta Stone/Google Case
• Lawmakers Question Whether Google Adequately Reviews Ads Potentially Related To Human Trafficking
• Google Opens Kimono (Slightly) On AdWords Screening Measures
• Behind The Scenes In Google’s Battle Against Bad Ads

The infographic is from SEO Book and is interesting in that rather than taking a timeline approach, it instead shows examples of various types of people who’ve declared that SEO is dead and why they are, as the infographic puts it, “deluded.”

The infographic is below; click to enlarge it:

If you want the infographic for yourself, you’ll find it here: Infographic – Is SEO Dead?

For our own reasons why SEO will never die, well, see our SEO Is Here To Stay, It Will Never Die post from 2010, which says in part:

SEO is about understanding how these search engines get their information and what should be done to gain free traffic from them. SEOs — and search marketers in general — understand the process of search, and they tap into that process to attract visitors.

People have had search needs since as long as they’ve been thinking. Search engines are merely a new, efficient way of answering those needs. The demand for answers isn’t going away; search engines aren’t going away, nor will how search engines provide answers. That means SEO as a way to help ensure you’re one of the answer has a strong future.

Related Articles

• Is SEO Dead? 1997 Prediction, Meet 2009 Reality
• SEO Is Here To Stay, It Will Never Die
• SEO Remains A Viable Marketing Strategy For Anyone
• Search Industry Well Represented On Annual List Of Fastest-Growing US Companies; SEO Cited As A Top ROI Tactic
• Google Says SEO Is Not Spam
• What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?
• Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors
• Mayor Bloomberg Declares “Search Week” In New York City

The folks at Promodo have an infographic outlining some key parts of the keyword research process. Understanding that each page has its own terms to target, brainstorming possible terms, researching with the Google Keyword Tool and more are covered. Check it out:

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here: Keyword Research Infographic.

Looking to improve your keyword research efforts? Be sure to subscribe to our Keywords & Content column here on Search Engine Land, where each week. Some past columns to read:

• Keyword Research Tool Review: Google AdWords
• How To Use The Keyword Funnel To Understand Searcher Intent
• What’s In A Word? The Critical Role Of Keyword Selection For Business Growth
• Three Free Keyword Research Tools
• The Difference In Keyword Research For SEO vs. PPC
• The Keyword Research Rabbit Hole
• How To Develop A Keyword Plan

Want to rank better in Google? If you’re an individual, you could build your own site and hope it does well. But you might have more success by creating a page for yourself on a social media site like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

Ranking On Google: The SEO Way

For those unfamiliar, the process of trying to rank better on Google and search engines in general is called search engine optimization. We’ve even got a short SEO video that explains it:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Success with SEO depends on a range of signals that search engines interpret, such as those covered on our Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors. You could build a web site, then hope that site gains enough favorable signals to rise up in Google. But for individuals, tapping into social media sites allows you to rank better on the favorable work those sites have already done or gained with Google.

Ranking On Google: The Social Media Way

A new infographic from the people at BrandYourself explains this more. It covers stats based how over 1oo,000 BrandYourself users rank on Google, showing how social media sites can help:

The infographic starts out with stats that back up facts already well known: lots of people search for other people on Google, and few searchers go past the first page of results that they get. So what shows up on the first page is important.

How Social Media Profiles Rank

The bottom part of the infographic is most interesting. It shows, on average, where personal profiles from various social media sites tend to rank in Google’s results.

For example, Facebook and Twitter are both in the #4 box, which means on average, they tend to rank fourth in Google (obviously, only one will be fourth in any particular search, not both, but we’re talking about the average placement here).

The surprise to me was that LinkedIn gets the highest of rankings. The list looks like this for major social media sites:

• LinkedIn: #3
• Facebook, Twitter: #4
• Google+: #7

Google+ was another surprise. Google’s taken a huge amount of flak that it seems to favor its own social network, Google+. If that’s the case, how come Google+ doesn’t rank higher, on average. It might be that this study didn’t reflect personalized results. It might also reflect that not a lot of people still have Google+ accounts.

Dominating The Page

The middle of the graphic covers the concept of “owning” or “dominating” the first page of search results, where every result is one that you control, something that those who are seeking to have a positive appearance in Google aim for.

This is again where social media profiles come in. The ones from major social media sites listed above are all easy to obtain. Once gained, they might help you rank better for your name and “push down” other results.

Some of the other social media profiles not listed (but on the infographic), those from more niche sites, can also help. Open a WordPress blog, a Tumblr blog, a Vimeo account, a YouTube profile or a Flickr account, and the study suggests there’s an excellent chance these will gain first page rankings, as well.

Remember, however, something really negative that gains widespread attention might stay in Google’s top results, no matter what you try. Just ask Rick Santorum. Getting your own social media profiles make sense for a variety of reasons, including helping your Google “reputation.” But they are no guarantee of making negative listings disappear.

In addition, working in a negative fashion to remove results you don’t like — such as through ill-advised legal threats — might actually help cement those negative results in Google, if they gain much attention.

How do you get rich descriptions? Google might do it naturally for your site, but there are a variety of techniques that can increase the odds.

The folks at SEOmoz and BlueGlass teamed up to produce the infographic below that explains more about rich snippets and how to make use of them:

Want the infographic for yourself? You’ll find it here: A Visual Guide to Rich Snippets.