Altitude’s Weekly Round-up (August 19, 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

SEO Copywriting Tips: Optimizing For Multiple Keywords On One Page

When you began learning SEO, someone probably told you not to optimize a webpage for more than two or three search terms. At the basic level, treating each keyword with the same reverence makes a lot of sense. It is easier to teach and execute. However, at at a more advanced level, we want to wring out every last drop of SEO-copy goodness we can get. This article lays out several steps on how to do this. How formally you execute them depends on your situation. If you are unfamiliar with the topic or working on a single page, you may want to stick close to this script. However, if you know the subject you are writing about well, some of this can be done more intuitively.(Search Engine Land – 100% Organic Blog) August 18, 2011.

21 PPC articles to bookmark now

21 excellent articles for learning more about, optimizing and integrating your SEM, PPC and online advertising campaigns. A must read if you’re considering integrating SEM and PPC into your marketing mix or not getting the results that you think you should. (Raven Blog) August 10, 2011.

Actual Bounce Rate vs. Bounce Rate, and Why the Difference Matters for SEO

If you’re not that familiar with Bounce Rate, it’s the percentage of visits that arrive on your site, visit no other pages, and then leave your site. Bounce rate is an incredibly powerful metric that can tell you a lot about campaign performance and the quality of your content in a very short amount of time. From a conversion optimization standpoint, the more you can lower your bounce rate, the more opportunity you have to convert visitors. This post focuses on how bounce rate impacts SEO, and specifically, how ACTUAL bounce rate affects SEO. (Search Engine Journal) August 9, 2011.

Google’s War Against Spam Goes Way Beyond Panda

For all of you webmasters still lamenting over Google’s infamous Panda update, it’s important that you don’t take it personally. You were simply a casualty–correctly or no–in Google’s never-ending war against spam content in its search results. Think of it as collateral damage, those of you who feel you were undeservedly punished. As indicated, Panda is just another in a long line of updates designed to clean the trash out of Google’s search index, and thanks to an awesome infographic from SEO.com, Panda update victims can track the history of the war, one that started in earnest in 2003, which is around the same time Google’s hold over the search engine industry was entering the “iron-clad” stage. (WebProNews) August 18, 2011.

Social Media

Facebook fans are irrelevant: Marketers want the social hybrid

There’s a significant shift happening where more and more marketers are expanding from targeting Facebook Fans to reaching the people those fans are socially connected to. This change was validated by a recent ComScore report, which is being accelerated by a confluence of factors.Marketers are realizing that: 1) consumers are becoming increasingly social in new and existing environments (hello Google+); 2) therefore creating massive amounts of social activity data; and 3) the technology and science that processes this data is getting more sophisticated and precise. This innovation can be likened to another “environmentally conscious” revolution (in the literal sense): the hybrid car. (SocialBeat) August 17, 2011.

How Social Media Marketers Can Make the Most of Monitoring Tools

There is more than one way to monitor and measure social media outreach and online campaigns, and companies must find the right setup for them. Looking at how marketers are using monitoring tools and what benefits come from certain options can give companies insight into what works. In June 2011, RSW/US and Web Liquid surveyed 237 senior US marketers for the “Marketers & Social Media Monitoring Survey 2011” to learn about their monitoring habits. By far, the most popular social media monitoring tool was Google Alerts, as 46% of respondents said they were using it. Radian6 was also popular, with 7% of responses, as was Meltwater Buzz, with 4% of responses. (eMarketer) August 18, 2011.

Facebook Begins Rolling Out New Left-Hand Navigation

Facebook has begun rolling out a restructured left-hand navigation that includes revamped bookmarks and notifications for Pages, Groups and Apps. The changes, originally announced last week, are part of the company’s efforts to make Facebook Apps more engaging. The new version of the navigation is divided into four groups: Favorites, Pages, Groups and Apps. Favorites includes direct links to popular Facebook features such as News Feed or Events. The Pages and Groups sections each list the two most popular Pages and Groups you use, along with a notifications number to the right-hand side. Game Requests and App Requests look almost identical to the previous version of the navigation menu. (Mashable) August 18, 2011.

Starting in Social Media? The 5 P’s of a Perfect Program

So you are new in this Social Media revolution. You may or may not have been an innovator or early adapter – or perhaps you are still cautiously implementing Social Media into your business. This article isn’t going to convince you should use Social Media, but rather teach you how to best use it. Create your Perfect Program using the 5 P’s of a Perfect Program – plan, position, platform, people and performance. (Social Media Today) August 18, 2011.

An SMB Steps Up To Marketing Automation

How one small business adapted its sales approach to changing business conditions by streamlining how it captures and manages leads on its website using marketing automation. This is a great example of what is possible when technology is applied properly. (Information Week – SMB Blog) August 18, 2011.

The Greatest Customer Service Story Ever Told, Starring Morton’s Steakhouse

The title really does speak for itself. Read this article and get ready to be amazed at just how far some brands are willing to go to take care of their fans and evangelists. (Peter Shankman’s Blog) August 18, 2011.