SEO, Content Marketing, and Social Media: The Best of February 2015

Since our last roundup, Google has announced that they will begin indexing tweets, which is yet another example that social and SEO are tied together in many different ways. Additionally, the world has gotten so crazy that this month in the content marketing section, we have included lessons from both BuzzFeed and journalists. This is just another example of how important content marketing is to all publishers, from news outlets to viral sites. We’ve also rounded up what we thought were the best of the rest from the fields of SEO, content marketing, and social media. Check out these great articles, and if you’re looking for the same great content the rest of the year, don’t forget to check in with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

SEO

A Content Marketer’s Guide To SEO: A Checklist

It’s 2015 and by now you’ve been told, again and again, the importance of developing valuable content to increase your visibility in search. It’s time to cut through the noise and step up with some advice you can actually use to generate results from content development.

Google Plans to Index Tweets in Real Time: How This Could Impact Your SEO

Years ago, it was commonplace to find real-time tweets in Google Search results. Twitter and Google had inked a deal that gave the search giant access to the social network’s data stream.

7 SEO Strategies to Implement in 2015

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) sounds a bit like rocket science. With the right combo of this widget and that module, add in time, subtract theory and maybe the equation will produce a solution better than the last.

SEO 2015: Will This be the Year of the Story Brand?

Certain people always seem to know what’s going on in digital marketing. They are able to predict the “Hot Topic” months in advance. For as many years as I’ve been in this business, I have been flabbergasted by the knowledge of others, and how they give that knowledge away, seemingly for free.

7 Creative Link-Building Techniques to Improve Your Website SEO

As Google begins to penalize every known link-building technique, it is going to extremely tough going forward for small businesses with an online channel to build a. high-quality linking strategy. So the success of your business’ SEO is going to depend on how creative you can get.

How Guest Blogging Solved My SEO Problem

A year ago, guest blogging was declared dead. No less of a figure than Google’s Matt Cutts wrote: “OK, I’m calling it: If you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why?

How to Create an SEO-Friendly Multilingual Website

Society is becoming increasingly globalized with every year. Meanwhile, most of SEO is highly anglocentric. Almost everything discusses how to optimize an English site for American audiences, or at most, audiences spanning the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Content Marketing

You Don’t Need to Be a Brand Publisher to Win at Content Marketing

“Man, I’m sorry. You guys weren’t ready to adopt the brands as publisher mindset. I suspected you’d never be ready to do it successfully. I knew it; I could sense you knew it. I wish I’d spoken up when I saw the intra-departmental debates waging. That’s on me. My bad.”

What Mark Cuban Doesn’t Get About Content Marketing

I was watching an episode of Shark Tank this past week featuring young entrepreneurs. One of the entrepreneurs was Carter Kostler, the 15-year old owner and creator of Define Bottle, a fruit-infused water bottle.

The Secrets of Writing Smart, Long-Form Articles That Go Absolutely Viral

Over the last several years many professional writers and journalists have lamented what’s been called the BuzzFeedification of the Internet.

How To Start A Blog When You Have Absolutely No Audience

So you have this great business idea, your mom likes it, your friends like it, and hey, a subset of people you don’t know even like it. You’ve spread word about it through your network—and their networks—and have received a positive response.

9 Lessons Content Marketers Can Learn from Traditional Journalism

The internet has radically changed the state of journalism, but content marketing is a relatively new field that can still benefit a lot from the practices of traditional reporters. In the interest of improving the field of content marketing overall, here are nine lessons from traditional journalism that every content marketer should know to better engage and build trust with readers.

Social Media

New Data: What Types of Content Perform Best on Social Media?

In many aspects of life, timing is key. If you’ve got to schedule a very important meeting, and all of the attendees aren’t morning people, scheduling an 8 a.m. start time probably won’t result in a productive meeting.

Social Media 101: How to Create Engaging Content

Welcome to Web 2.0. Social media will be your guide! From December 2010, when Google confirmed social signals from Facebook and Twitter are used to determine search rankings, to the present day when the search giant reinstated the SEO-value of social signals, the critical need for a powerful social media presence has only increased.

6 Social Media Practices That Boost SEO

The practices of Social Media Marketing, or SMM, and Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, are two strategies that are associated to each other in a number of ways. They are both strategies that have their prime focus on developing an alluring identity for the brand, which helps in attracting visitors naturally.

Four Ways to Increase Social Shares for your Website Content

Want more exposure for your website content? Does your site make it easy for readers to share? With a few simple tips, you can boost the appeal of your website content and optimize your posts for easy sharing on social channels.

Google+ Is Poised For A Big Breakup

Some major restructuring is going on at Google+, and it looks like it’s the end of the social network as we know it—if that label was ever appropriate in the first place. Long-time Google VP Bradley Horowitz has announced that he’s taking the management reins from David Besbris and splitting Google+ into separate services called Photos and Streams at the same time.

This month we’ll end the roundup with a pizza order. A 3D printed pizza order.

Image Credit: Flick User/Peter Werkman