Altitude’s Weekly Round-up (August 12, 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.
SEO
New Domain Structures Could Mean Change for SEO
Can you imagine a world without Google? It may be unlikely that we’ll ever see a search engine-less world again, but by January 2012, Google and other search engines may begin to become less and less necessary. According to PCMag.com, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved a plan for new domain name structures, including domain extensions-and it could impact the way people find sites on the web. (EContent) August 9, 2011.
10 Ways to Link Build for Free
I see a lot of people talking about how link building is difficult and the truth is, it really is. It’s time consuming, tedious, frustrating, and several other negative words. To make things worse it can also get very pricey, no matter whether you’re outsourcing it or doing it in-house. I’ve also seen several posts about free ways to get links and they’re all great ideas, but some methods can be a little uncertain. This is especially the case for smaller companies, where the risk of potentially wasting a lot of man-hours isn’t an option. To help make things a little easier, I put together a list of 10 ways to get links for free that I’ve seen work and work well.. (SEOMoz – The YOUMoz blog) July 13, 2011.
5 Things You Didn’t Know About Blogging and SEO
The Internet is the great equalizer of publishing, where anyone who is passionate enough can set up shop and broadcast their thoughts to the online world. Businesses should be no different. A business blog is a great way to inform and educate your target audience while simultaneously establishing your company as an industry expert. However, there is more to blogging than meets the eye. Building a generic site and haphazardly publishing posts isn’t going to provide much value for your brand. While you may know your industry inside and out, there is a lot about blogging you might not know. (InformationWeek SMB) August 2, 2011.
Social Media
LinkedIn Profiles Get Update, Users Get to Help
LinkedIn has launched a new “Improve Your Profile” tool, aimed at allowing members to optimize their presence. The Improve Your Profile Tool analyzes your profile and offers you personalized profile recommendations to help you put your best foot forward. The feature is customized for each member, and it will be updated frequently, according to the company. (WebProNews) August 9, 2011.
Businesses need to reclaim their online identities and go social
There are approximately 130 million websites online. However, the majority of them are built using technology which is over a decade old – a crazy thought when considering that these destinations, make up the fabric of the very web we expect to be right up to date. Jason Rosenthal, the chief executive of Silicon Valley website creation company Ning, is hoping to alter this trend of building sites with old technology, that fail to take into account the crucial social elements of web 2.0. (The Telegraph) August 7, 2011.
Social Media Fatigue
One of the biggest pushbacks I hear from people when I talk about how wonderful I think Google+ will be for business professionals is that they’re tired. They’re tired of joining a new social network. They’re tired of going through the dance of re-adding their friends and connections on yet another platform. They’re tired of having to think up even more content for yet another platform, after having finally committed to Facebook or Twitter or wherever else. (Chris Brogan) August 1, 2011.
Should SMBs Add Google+ To Their Marketing Plans?
Google+ might still be ironing out the kinks, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a major source of referral traffic for at least one small business. Online marketing firm WordStream noted a surge in its Google+-referred traffic in a July 26 blog post; the new kid on the social networking block had already climbed into third place in referrals, passing LinkedIn in spite of a much smaller user base. (InformationWeek SMB) August 4, 2011.
Facebook’s New Messaging App Aims to Do Away With SMS
Facebook debuted a new app for smartphones Tuesday, allowing users to send text messages to each other from their smartphones using Facebook’s messaging system. The app in question — Facebook Messenger — is an extension of Facebook’s existing messaging system, which allows two Facebook users to communicate within the Facebook platform. As a standalone program separate from the Facebook app, Messenger allows Facebook users to send text messages between phones, while still storing the conversation in a user’s messaging center on his or her individual Facebook page. (Wired Epicenter Blog) August 9, 2011.
5 Legal Guides Every Blogger Should Read
With a slew of potential legal issues including copyright, defamation, trademark, privacy and much more, there are many ways a well-meaning blogger can find themselves being sued. Fortunately, several bloggers and blogging-related organizations have worked hard to produce legal guides that give you a good breadth of information in a simple, single work that you can easily read or search through. (The Blog Herald) August 5, 2011.
Why Companies are Afraid of Social Media
There are any number of reasons why companies are afraid, and there are only a few reasons why they shouldn’t be. But these reasons trump all the excuses any business can ever come up with. (Social Media Explorer) August 4, 2011.
