Entries Tagged 'Potluck Sunday' ↓

The big news for business bloggers during the past week was the announcement of Pinterest’s new tools for businesses. And, as always, bloggers have been busy creating great content. Here’s a list of the best posts I ran across last week:

• 10 Ways to Make Your Blog More Social – from LongHornLeads, this list doesn’t share any surprises, but it’s a great social content marketing checklist.
• 10 Tips to Take Advantage of Google+ for SEO – We’ve talked a lot about the importance of social media in relation to SEO, and since Google is the proud parent of Google+, wise bloggers will take notice of its importance. Cyrus Shepherd wrote this guest post over on Social Media Biz.
• Snoox: It’s Like Pinterest but for Social Recommendations – Whether or not we need another social platform, we now have Snoox (“We Share Things Every Day in Real Life – Now Share, Search & Save Recommendations with Friends Online.”). Thanks to Megan O’Neill for her Snoox review on SocialTimes.
• In B2B Email Subject Lines, Some Keywords Work Better than Others - You gotta love analysts. Thanks to MarketingCharts for researching over a BILLION email subject headlines to let us know which words are more effective. It’s great information. I’m just glad they did the research and not me!
• 7 Tips to Create Great Mobile Landing Pages - Did you know 70 percent of mobile searchers take action within one hour of their search? We’ve talked a lot about landing pages lately, and this post from DreamGrow gives some great tips for mobile landing pages.

Autumn is full of changes. This week we changed months and early this morning we changed time. And, as always, online marketing, social media and blogging have made some changes.

Today’s Potluck Sunday lists some of the “champion” posts that I ran across during the past week:

• Changes to Google+ Hangouts – Amit Fulay of Google+ shares how some recent changes make Google+ Hangouts nicer to look at, easier to use.
• The Importance of Adding Alt Tags and Title Tags to Your Images – Another change we’ve been discussing how on-page SEO will be vital and that off-site tactics will wane in the wake of compelling content. Instantshift shares this post that explains in-depth about the importance of tagging your images and how to do it.
• A Visual Tour of Windows 8 – I’m a Mac person, but I’ve heard some of the buzz about another recent change in the world of Windows – the release of Windows 8. ARS Technica walks us through a visual tour of the latest platform.
• The Pinterst-ization of the e-commerce experience – Speaking of change, Pinterest has changed the look and feel of “traditional” social media platforms, and GigaOM shares how Pinterest is changing e-commerce, too.
• 6 Simple Tips for Distributing an Infographic – Infographics are not “new,” per se, but recent emphasis in visual content (with much thanks to Pinterest, I’m sure) has created a rise in the popularity of Infographics. Search Engine People shares this article on how to make the most of your Infographic launch.
• What do people really do when they get a marketing email? – (Here’s another change. I typically only highlight 5 posts of the week, but I’m adding a sixth today.) Mark Brownlow from Smart Insights explains how clicks are only part of the email marketing process.

What great posts have you run across (or written) this week? Share with us in the comments section.

Another week has flown by, so it’s time to share some of the best posts I ran across during the past week.

• 13-Point Checklist to Optimize Social Media Call-to-Action — Heidi Cohen, actionable marketing expert, shares why we need calls to action within our social media content and then gives 13 ways to optimize our social media calls to action.
• 5 Ways to User LinkedIn Answers for Your Next Blog Post — In a guest post by Wayne Liew, we learn how overlooked LinkedIn is by most bloggers. He then gives us tips on how to incorporate this powerful platform into our blogging efforts. There’s even a link to Wayne’s free guide to LinkedIn Answers.
• Infographic: The Growing Dominance of Mobile Search — The Mobile Tech Blog starts off by stating that having a mobile-friendly website is no longer an option. The infographic shares some things all of us need to consider as we optimize our websites and marketing for mobile use, which is on pace to surpass desktop traffic by 2014.
• 5 Link-Building Tactics that No Longer Work – Michael Schwartz over at Vertical Measures explains why these tactics, that have been used and taught by most bloggers for years, are no longer helpful. In fact, they can even harm your rankings nowadays.
• SEO Simplified: 7 Techniques You Can Do in One Hour or Less – Sujan Patel over at Single Grain shares some quick and easy SEO tips that anyone can do. In fact, the first five are tips I share with every one of my clients. These are very easy. Don’t be afraid of SEO – the most effective tactics are usually the easiest to employ.

That’s it for the roundup from last week. I hope your coming week goes well!

Until next time,

Happy Blogging!

As we near the death of SEO (more on that next SEO Saturday, but it’s true – SEO is terminally ill), sites with social media clout and genuine content are rising to the top of the search engine results pages. In light of that, today’s posts of the week roundup features some tips you can use as you strive to grow your community and provide great content for your readers. If that hasn’t been your focus in the past, it’s time to change.

Seriously.

The next big thing in marketing is content marketing via social media. And from this day forward, that will be the focus of posts at OnBloggingWell. We’ll still use the regular 7-topic format, but the content within those categories will be geared toward social content marketing.

• 30 Tips for Promoting Your Blog Content – Econsultancy (Digital Marketing Excellence) shares an infographic with us this week that builds upon the premise, “If you market it, they will come.”
• Retailers Pin Hopes on Christmas – “Brands are relying on social to boost sales this holiday season.” AdWeek discusses how holiday marketing has taken an interest in Pinterest.
• 12 Internal Linking Best Practices - from Search Engine People. Yeah, I know I said SEO is dying a slow death. But, according to a July Forbes article (“The Death of SEO: The Rise of Social, PR, and Real Content”), those who know WAY more about these things than I ever will, claim on-page SEO tactics will still be viable (quote from that article, “Follow internal SEO practices to make sure it is found”). It’s the backlinking frenzy that is going by the wayside. Which is great news for bloggers, because backlinking is time-consuming and (if you outsource) is very expensive. Learn to optimize your on-site content and market your content via social media. Social Content Marketing. Memorize that phrase.
• How to Optimize Your New LinkeIn Company Page in 7 Steps – LinkedIn has taken huge strides to improve profile pages. Check out this article by Portent, then head over to your LinkedIn page and spruce it up.
• 10 Google+ Power Tips for B2B – Stand by and watch. Google+ will become of vital importance in your social content marketing strategy. After all, who owns Google+? Social Media B2B brings out some great tips for all of us to implement. I admit – I’m TOTALLY lacking in the Google+ arena, but it’s time for me – and all of us – to change that!

Another week has rolled by, and, as always, many bloggers shared some great information with us. Here are some of the blog posts I found most useful during the past week.

• 5 Facebook Marketing Resources You Didn’t Know About — by Joanna Lord at SEOMOZ. Actually, I knew about three of these, so I felt special when I read her post. Facebook provides a lot of great information for marketers, and Joanna points out some of their tools.
• The 7 Most Important SEO Factors for Bloggers — by John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing. Duct Tape Marketing consistently offers great content, and this piece is no exception. SEO doesn’t need to be scary, and John does a great job of explaining some simple ways to help your content get found online. Bonus: John’s post featured a pic from one of my favorite photographers – Trey Ratcliff of Stuck in Customs.
• 8 Small Business Product Landing Pages Critiqued for Conversion — by James Gardner at UnBounce. I was glad to see a good post on landing pages, since that has been our focus here lately.
• Make the Web Faster with mod_pagespeed, Now out of Beta – by Google Webmaster Central. Yeah, I know, this one is a bit geeky, but the first sentence says “Speed Matters,” and it is one of the criteria Google uses in its top secret algorithm to rank pages. It’s a good idea to keep up with trends, so that’s why I put this piece in the mix.
• A Simple Guide to Reddit for Marketers — by Danny Brown. Reddit? Seriously? With all the Twitter/Facebook hoopla in marketing, we can’t forget about all the other great social media marketing tools out there.  Even the president of the United States recently put Reddit in the spotlight by using the platform to answer policy questions. In this post, Danny shares a great infographic titled, “The Reddit Marketing Field Guide.” I think you’ll find it useful.