Altitude’s Weekly Round-up (September 26, 2011)

Every week I spend a considerable amount of time reading industry blogs and newsletters to keep up with all of the evolutions and revolutions in online marketing and technology. The purpose: to generate new ideas and recommendations for our clients—and for you, our faithful readers. This week we take a look at staying motivated SEO-style, doing an effective SEO audit in 20 minutes or less, and big changes at Facebook (did you see my post about it?) and much more.

SEO

How to Sustain & Stay Motivated: SEO Edition

Whether you work as a one-man SEO army or part of a team at a bustling SEO consulting company, it can be difficult to sustain, to stay motivated and to keep pushing forward. It’s natural to occasionally feel burnt out or spend way too much time staring at the orange wall in front of your desk (what?) when your brain is working out the same problems day after day. But as Internet marketing professionals, we have to break through it. How do you sustain as an SEO so that you can continue to deliver for clients and stay at the top of your game day after day? (Outspoken Media) September 23, 2011.

An SEO Checklist for New Sites

As prospects turn to the major search engines before making purchasing decisions, how well your pages rank will determine how many of them buy from you. In the interest of driving your site’s organic visibility with a full range of link-building strategies, this post introduces no fewer than 99 paths to the first page – from product giveaways and charitable donations, to running competitions and leveraging the media – so you can build the link network you’ve always dreamed of – today. (SEOMoz) September 22, 2011.

SEO Audit in 20 Minutes [Infographic]

InMotion Hosting has put together an infographic that tackles one of the most necessary yet under-utilized aspects of Internet marketing: the SEO audit. It’s under-utilized for the simple reason that many people don’t understand the importance of taking this step before moving forward with any SEO activities. Oh and they don’t want to spend the money to have it done, either. The trouble is that if you don’t invest to know what’s working or not for your SEO efforts then you may end up “fixing” something in the process that was actually working. (Marketing Pilgrim) September 22, 2011.

99 Ways to Build Links by Giving Stuff Away

So you have a new website but it isn’t ranking, or ranking well, yet. This brief video presented by Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz, a recognized SEO expert, walks you through the things that you should be doing and some of things that you shouldn’t be doing? Essentially he provides watchers with great SEO checklist that new, and established websites, can benefit from. (SEOMoz) September 19, 2011.

An Optimized Framework for Better Content Marketing & SEO

Your organization’s digital content is one of its most valuable and productive assets, so investing in a strategy that optimizes it for social and search is not only a natural one, but a wildly effective one too. Here, you’ll be provided a framework for accomplishing just that, targeting everything you need – social share buttons, keyword integration, modular content, and more – to make your content work harder and perform better. (TopRank) September 15, 2011.

Social Media

Prepare Yourselves: Facebook To Be Profoundly Changed

Facebook is driven by a single, unique goal. Its priority isn’t to gain more users (it already has 750 million of those), nor does it feel compelled to find stupid ways to increase pageviews. Its primary goal right now isn’t to increase revenue, either — that will come later. No, Facebook’s goal is to become the social layer that supports, powers and connects every single piece of the web, no matter who or what it is or where it lives. On Thursday at its f8 conference in San Francisco, the world’s largest social network will take a giant leap toward accomplishing that goal. Additionally, here is the link to the live blog covering the event: Facebook Reveals Major Updates at F8 [VIDEO](Mashable) September 22, 2011.

Scientifically Proven Ways to Get More Out of Social Media

Setting up the Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts is easy. The hard part is figuring what exactly to do with them. How often should you post? And when? What exactly should you say to connect with customers–and get your message spread? Social media researcher Dan Zarella has been exploring these questions and along the way, he uncovers some surprising findings, and demolishes more than a few cherished myths about how you should be using social media. (BNET) September 22, 2011.

The Hazards of Being Too Social in the Age of Social Media

It’s one of the quickest, easiest, and dumbest ways to bring an otherwise successful career to an untimely end. And when it happens to you, it’s a lesson you never forget. I’m talking about executives opening their big mouths when and where they shouldn’t. And now, with social media, it’s even worse. Way worse. In any case, whether you’re blabbing to the press, documenting your stupidity in an email, or spilling company secrets on LinkedIn, everything gets amplified in the age of social media. This post provides seven examples of how being too public can land you in big trouble. (BNET) September 21, 2011.

Social Media For Dummies – er – Busy Execs

Everybody’s buzzing about social media. Unfortunately, you’ve got a real job running finance, marketing, sales, or a whole damn company, which means you’ve got zero time to figure out how it fits into your business, organization, whatever, right? Well, here’s a simple guide to help ease you into the insanely-overhyped world of social media, from a former executive who, these days, has to deal with all this crazy stuff. (BNET) September 16, 2011.

17 Location-Based Marketing Tips To Drive Word of Mouth & Referrals

Although not traditional social networks, location-based services have all the positive qualities of them, and they’re rapidly connecting brands and consumers in a way that drives word-of-mouth referrals like we’ve never seen before. If your organization has a brick-and-mortar location of any kind, investing in location-based marketing is usually a wise choice, and here you’ll discover the top 17 pointers for maximizing the potential of this lucrative channel. (TopRank Blog) September 16, 2011.