Where does Facebook Places fit into the local ecosystem? If local search was the game of Risk, David Mihm says Facebook Places is instantly one of the major countries.
Does the SEO industry need a (stronger) advocacy group to improve its reputation? Matthew Diehl says such a group could help consumers make better choices when hiring search marketing consultants and avoid the “snake oil”-type companies that sell SEO services.
Busy doing link building these days? Paddy Moogan outlined ways to research the best link opportunities, while Larry Kim shared his opinions on five link building myths.
Those are just some of the stories that went hot on Sphinn last week. The full list is below; no doubt you’ll find something to pique your interest.
Hot On Sphinn: August 16 to August 22, 2010
- Win With Web Metrics: Ensure A Clear Line Of Sight To Net Income! – This is an incredible post on monitoring web metrics and how to segment your data to understand where to create initiatives that will increase your bottom line.
- Website Auditor Review – Ann Smarty walks through this "advanced on-site diagnostics assistant" that helps you understand site architecture, indexation, link value distribution and popularity of your domain on some social media sites.
- Local Search War Gets Hot: Facebook Joins Game – David Mihm analyzes Facebook Places from a local search perspective and places it in the "world ecosystem" of its competitors, offering excellent in-depth analysis of each.
- Increase Your ROI with Conversion Rate Optimisation – Online marketing techniques help contemporary businesses control costs. In today's complex economic climate, budget discipline can give your company an advantage over the competition.
- If Google Places usage is to be extended, then Google Places needs fixing – SNIP - There have been some very interesting developments with regards to the expanded use of Google Places over the last couple of months, with Google not only increasing the usage of Google Places within their mainstream SERPs but also increasing the number of features within it such as Tags
- Could a Consumer Advocacy Group Help the Reputation of the SEO Industry? – It's Matthew Diehl's first post on the Trail and yes… he's going there (eek). He is asking the age old question of some type of formal system to help the SEO world grow from infancy. Will it work? Will it matter? It says here that… well… NO… We all just can't seem to ever agree – good post and welcome aboard Matt!
- Clean URLs are Good for SEO – It may seem like a basic enough concept and post, but believe it or not, everyday I see so many people doing it wrong. Good job to Chuck for posting this great information about having clean URLs and their benefit to SEO.
- Search Engine Traffic Drops: How to Diagnose and Fix the Problem – This checklist will help you quickly identify and fix the problem, restore your organic traffic and save a bunch of nerve cells on the way.
- What The New Digg Means For Your Business – You may have heard heavy social media users complaining about the upcoming Digg release, but if you are a business owner, you may actually like what's coming. Neal Rodriguez explains what the new Digg offers for businesses.
- Attention! Before You Guest Blog, Know Their Audience – It is important before you start to guest blog, that you understand each blogs target audience and how influencial they are. This post shows you how to research a blogs audience and readership to help you decide on which blogs to write guest posts for.
- Rand's Getting More Worried about the Effectiveness of Webspam – For a long time, if you asked me about spamming the search engines, whether with hardcore black hat tactics or merely gray hat link acquisition, I'd say that in the long run, neither was the right move. Building a great site and a great brand through hard work, white hat links, solid content and marketing strategies has always been my path of choice. It still is today, but my faith is definitely wavering.
- Google treating brand names in search terms as site: searches? – If you search for [some term] and [website name], Google's now treating it as if this is a site:[website name] search – allowing that site to completely dominate the first page of results. Seems a big shift in favour of big brands – and will also penalise affiliates, and companies reselling other services.
- Top 25 Social Media Keyword Search Tools and Engines – Want to learn what is being said in your niche or industry in real time? Check out these 25 blogging, forum, and social media search tools and engines.
- Market Research for Link Building – Who You Can Get Links From – Very comprehensive post from the SEOmoz blog about link building "due diligence".
- The Seven-Step Process for Writing Enticing Product Descriptions – If you've ever wondered how you can write unique, enticing and SEO'd descriptions for the same old products everyone else sells, you'll want to read this article by copywriting expert Karon Thackston.
- 5 Persistent Myths About Link Building Debunked – Larry Kim rips apart some common myths about link-building that stubbornly won't go away.
- Three ways bloggers just gotta have fun – It's time to put the fun back into blogging. Put on your smiles and follow these tips to being a more fun-loving blogger.
- Conversion Optimization is the new Black – That’s really what our mission is or should be in the search industry. To make clients more money. Whether they monetize leads after someone fills out a lead generation form, they monetize leads after someone signs up to attend an event, or they sell products directly on their site, the more people they get taking those actions, the more money they’ll make.
- AJAX & SEO: A Strategic Approach To Rankings – Dealing with the limitations of AJAX and Flash can be an SEOs worst nightmare. There are so many issues that come into play & usually you can deal with many AJAX SEO issues by developing Progressively Enhanced code.
- Why The Google AdWords Keyword Tool Shouldn’t Be Used For SEO – A Case Study – one reason why not to trust Google :)
- Why Your Web Developer and SEO Keep Asking You For Content – A quick run down for website/SEO clients on why we keep asking for content, why their web developer has lost focus on their project and suggestions on how to get content done.
Every day, your peers in the search industry are reading and voting on articles that are shared on our sister site, Sphinn. The most popular content goes “hot” — i.e., it reaches the Sphinn home page — when it acquires enough community votes or when a Sphinn editor promotes it as an “Editor’s Choice.”
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