February may be the shortest month of the year, but that doesn’t mean there’s any less of the awesome content marketing, social media, and SEO content that we love to share. So, for your delight and edification, here’s some of the most informative and actionable content that we’ve come across this month.
SEO
18 Meta Tags Every Webpage Should Have in 2013
Let’s get back to basics. Honestly, arguments with ad agency copywriters bother me. This makes me dislike talking about metadata. However, the reality is this. Search and Social are rapidly converging. Therefore, SEOs are left with the technical tasks. Consequently, metadata continues to be our responsibility. The most …
SEOs – Your Typography Sucks
When people are on your website they are either skimming through content to find what they are looking for or they have found what they are looking for and want to read it as easily as possible. Either ways, having readable text will help them achieve their goal. A small change in typography can hugely impact the interpretation of your contentWhat do you …
Top 10 SEO Mistakes Made By Small Businesses
Interflora – Where have all the flowers gone? – SEO Blog by Dave Naylor – SEO Tools, Tips & News
If you work in search marketing, you likely noticed the penalty dumped on Interflora this week. People first noticed it on Tuesday. However, the true picture of the penalty started to take shape today. This happened when SearchMetrics updated, showing such a dramatic fall.This is plain to see that …
The New SEO: Search Marketing Integration
Every year, somebody proclaims that SEO is dead simply because Google has made some changes to its algorithm. But don’t worry, this post won’t be declaring that SEO is dead, dying, or even coughing up blood. However, the days of SEO as a distinct, independent discipline are certainly numbered. SEO is fast evolving into a more creative, diverse, and challenging profession. Over the …
Baidu SEO: Optimising for a Chinese Target Audience
As is common knowledge, the vast population of over 1 billion in China paves the way for fantastic consumerism which we Westerners should become involved with. All companies need recognition to succeed. The best way to achieve this is through Search Engine Optimization. However, when looking to heighten your company’s SEO in China, there are a few things you need to be weary of. Although Google is a large percentage of the world’s …
On-Page SEO Best Practices in 2013: 7 Rules of the Game
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard enough about on-page optimization to last a lifetime. I don’t want to repeat the same mantras you’ve been hearing since last year. Yes, on-page SEO has become more important (I can hardly remember a time when it wasn’t), and yes, on-page SEO can make or break your chances at ranking high on Google SERPs. But what has changed is the way we …
Don’t Sacrifice Design for SEO or SEO for Design
When looking at a new site build or re-design, it’s important to build search optimisation into its development from the ground up. We are all very aware of the on page SEO optimisations such as Title tags, H Tags, Image alt tags, content and links. However, there is little value in building a website without building SEO into its design and site structure. At Gravytrain we work hard at integrating search …
The backlink within the practice of SEO is an ongoing topic of conversation for marketing, sales, delivery and reporting of SEO services. Even in a post Penguin world, SEO professionals are still asking questions such as: What’s the best way to …
4 Steps to Becoming a Hero Using Competitor SEO Analysis
The practice of SEO is a fairly results-oriented business. Increasingly, metrics dominate the focus of the SEO professional, whether rank, traffic, or conversions. While a move to more measurement is overall a good thing, it means that SEOs are increasingly head down, focused on the things—like link building, on-page optimization, and content creation—that they believe will move the metrics needle. A focus on tactics closely tied to metrics produces a byproduct. This byproduct is that activities that are…
Content Marketing
Integrating content marketing strategies and mobile design
Anyone who’s up on technology has heard of mobile web design and content marketing—two terms used with increasing frequency in the online world. Can mobile design and a great content marketing strategy be combined? Can this happen without sacrificing content or design elements? Or does the content of a website suffer because of the restrictions imposed by design for small screens? The truth is this: great content doesn’t have to be sacrificed for mobile design. In fact, mobile design can even enhance it…
4 Ways Brands Can Plan for Content Success
Brands are often (rightly) told they need to move fast in order to play in the content game. But that doesn’t mean planning goes out the window. Quite the contrary. Some brand managers — and the agencies trying to win business from them — seem to think that spending a few weeks or even (gasp) a month in audit, goal-setting and research is a colossal waste of time and …
Is Thought Leadership The Future of Marketing?
In our last interview, Steve McKee asked if Big Data was the future of marketing. In previous interviews, Doug Kessler talked about creating a content culture, Todd Wheatland predicted that content and technology would combine to drive the future of marketing. Mark Schaefer discussed culture and the future of search. Marcus Starke predicted the rise of the science of marketing. Ann Handley called for …
If content marketing is part of your strategy, be it through newsletters, social media, advertorial and the like, the challenge is in creating meaningful, effective, and relevant content. The natural inclination is to simply pass along content found in a web search, but the legal implications of …
Content Marketing: The Fallacy that More Content is Better
Everywhere I go, I find marketers who are challenged with creating more content. More blog posts, more eBooks, more videos, more podcasts… more, more, more. Even our latest content marketing research found that the number one challenge for business marketers is producing enough content. I’m done with more. Here’s a little state of the industry that I’ve noticed: There are hundreds of marketing gurus out there who will tell you that …
Social Media
Focus on Affinity with Facebook Posts
From a marketing and advertising perspective, Facebook is a game. It may not be very fun for businesses, but just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean that you don’t have to play along to be successful. On the other hand, some businesses have plenty of fun on Facebook. Whether you do or not makes absolutely no difference, though some will say that if you’re having fun with it that you’ll be more successful. I contend that fun or …
3 Tools to Better Manage Your Social Media Presence
Do you want to make more efficient use of your time on social media? Are you looking for tools that will help you manage your social media efforts? This article will show you 3 tools. These tools will help you become more efficient with social media. First, there’s Glyder. It’s for Social Media Marketing from your iPhone. Glyder is an iPhone app. It lets you share good-looking marketing messages. You use predefined templates for social media updates. You …
We’ll round-off this month’s round-up with a video from Matt Cutts addressing something a lot of webmasters are worried about:
