| | FEATURE:
SEO Newsletter Turns 100! The Evolution of a Company Newsletter, Eight Years in the Making
Author: Jessica Lee
| | | The year was 2004, and newsletters in the SEO industry were a growing trend. But, there was something missing -- not all of them provided the type of knowledge transfer to the community that Bruce Clay, Inc. knew was a necessity at that time. People needed to learn more about SEO strategies that provided long-term value, what worked, what didn’t work and how to do it. The Bruce Clay website was a popular place for visitors to receive the information they needed on search engine optimization, but BCI wanted to diversify the medium of delivery. Long before social media and the other channels that are available to us today existed, email marketing in the form of newsletters were among the first forms of content marketing. With the desire to educate the community, the SEO Newsletter was born. The story of how a newsletter comes to be and the challenges and successes it faces over the years is an interesting one. Our SEO Newsletter, more than eight years in the making, certainly has some stories to tell and some lessons to be learned. 
| | | SURVEY:
Tell Us What You Think About the SEO Newsletter!
| | | We're celebrating 100 editions, and we want to ensure we continue to make the SEO Newsletter as relevant as possible for you for many years to come. Your opinion counts tremendously! So, please, take a moment to give feedback in this anonymous survey, so we can continue to deliver great content to you and provide an experience you look forward to each month. Thank you for your continued readership! | | | BACK TO BASICS:
SMX West 2012 Highlights and Post-Show Analysis
Author: Virginia Nussey | | | Search and social media marketing events are frequently the stage for major developments in industry practices and schools of thought. The first big U.S. search engine marketing (SEM) conference of the new year, SMX West, tackled a multitude of newly emerging issues facing SEOs and interactive marketers. Consider that in the few months of 2012 that have passed, Google outlined more than 40 changes to search results affecting the presentation of local results, the valuation of link equity and analytics data provided to webmasters. Bruce Clay, Inc. attended SMX West and here, we have collected the most popular topics of discussion among speakers and attendees and the totality of our SMX West coverage. The majority of the content falls under one of three categories: search engine marketing, social media marketing and conference attendee tips.
| | | INTERNATIONAL:
SEO Factors & Trends Report 2012
Author: Bruce Clay Europe | | | According to Internet marketing research by McKinsey in May 2009, in the past two years, online sales have grown in the European continent by 31 percent. In recent years, the number of SEO agencies in Europe, especially in Netherlands, Germany, UK and France, has also increased. This has stimulated rising expertise of SEO in Europe and increased the number of European SEO conferences and educational SEO courses. Here, we have compiled important SEO educational events in Europe scheduled in 2012. | | | INTERNATIONAL:
SEO Factors & Trends Report 2012
Author: Brent Yorzinski | | | On February 21, 2012, Google announced on its webmaster central blog that they are launching video support for schema.org, calling it the "recommended way to describe videos on the web". This means it is increasingly important that all on-page markup relating to video contains as much information as possible. Schema.org is a partnership amongst Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex to create a structured markup to catalogue snippets of information and use them to enhance the way search engine results may be displayed. The ultimate goal of schema.org is to make it simpler for people to locate relevant information. More information, including their full definition can be found at Schema.org. This, combined with Google’s announcement, makes it even clearer that following the guidelines suggested is valuable. | | | Hot Topics
On March 16, the next generation iPad became availableand was welcomed with crowds of consumers across 10 countries, as they huddled outside Apple stores to purchase the new tablet. In the search community, tactics for mobile SEO have been tried and tested for some time now, but new data from Apple suggests that perhaps mobile site and SEO strategy should be at the forefront for websites. At the Apple iPad 3 event in the beginning of March, Apple announced that it sold more iPads in the last quarter alone than any PC manufacturer sold in their entire line. This data supports what many of us suspect: mobile devices for search will become a preferred means, as more and more people use devices like iPads and iPhones, and as the younger generations become the consumer. Users may still find some online tasks to be better suited for PCs, for example, making actual purchases through shopping carts and conducting extensive research on a topic; but, time spent on a mobile device for local search and social media will continue to rise. And, as mobile Web usage becomes more sophisticated, those online tasks typically reserved for PCs are likely to migrate to mobile. So, what are some things you can do to get your site mobile ready? In December 2011, Google announced Googlebot-Mobile, a spider that crawls the Web as a smartphone to provide a better user experience for mobile users. A recent article on Search Engine Watch explains how to best set up a site for Googlebot-Mobile. But even with this new development, many believe Googlebot-Mobile is not as impactful as it could be. In a recent article by iCrossing, it stated mobile search results only slightly changed after this implementation, and that mobile-specific websites do nothing to improve a site’s position in the results. iCrossing suggests using the CSS3 technology called “media queries” resolves the conflict between mobile user experience and SEO. But Bing, on the other hand, is simplifying mobile search. Earlier this month, Bing announced a one-URL stancefor mobile which states that for each website, instead of having different URLs per platform (desktop versus mobile), there only needs to be one. Many welcome this update and wonder when Google will follow Bing. And of course, with user experience at the forefront of mobile search, there are certainly best practices for mobile site design that any business can follow to get a website mobile-ready.
 | | | | Shuffles
Former Facebook engineer Yishan Wong has been named CEO of social news site Reddit. The appointment comes shortly after Reddit is making its first steps as an independent company after many years under corporate ownership. LinkedIn acquired Rapportive, a service that aggregates contact information across a user's networks including LinkedIn, Gmail, Twitter and Facebook. Shortform blogging platform Posterous has been acquired by Twitter in a move to gain the people and technology, suggesting that the Posterous service will eventually be shut down. Google has hired Digg founder Kevin Rose, known for his knack for building online following and community which is expected to be channeled toward Google+. | | | | Shindigs
A Federated Media event on how to reach customers through both established platforms and the independent Web takes place March 21 in San Francisco. SES New York will be held March 19 to March 23 with Bruce Clay's one-day SEO training on the 23rd. Bruce Clay, Inc. is a silver sponsor of SES New York, and Bruce will speak in the session, "SEO is Dead. Long Live SEO!" on March 21. It's not too late to register. Use the code 20BRU to receive 20 percent off registration. Social Media Strategies Summit takes place in Chicago April 18 to 19. The newly updated SEOToolSet® standard and advanced training and certification course will take place in Simi Valley, Calif., from May 14 to May 18. | Web Marketing Evolution, a conference on Internet marketing in Italy, takes place March 22 in Milan, Italy. Director of Bruce Clay Europe, Ale Agostini, is a speaker at the event and will present SEO and social media marketing strategies and practices. | | | | | Attaboys
Facebook introduced new placements of premium ads and Sponsored Stories. Sponsored Stories are now being displayed in the News Feed on mobile devices, and premium ads are now shown on the log-out page. An entirely new marketing option, Facebook Offers, lets businesses share discounts and promotions from their Facebook page. Facebook also introduced a way for users to organize their feed with interest lists. The third-generation Apple iPad is now available. Improvements to the tablet include a 5-megapixel camera with advanced optics, availability to connect to 4G LTE networks, and a Retina display that gives it the best mobile display available. | An ad by the South Australian Tourism Commission to promote Kangaroo Island has resulted in an increase of 208 percent on searches for “Kangaroo Island.” John Baker, managing partner of the Adelaide agency that made the ad has called it “probably the most beautiful thing we’ve ever created.” | | | | | Word on the Wire
The W3C's Do Not Track technology that would allow users to set preferences for online tracking has received support from the White House. A Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights has also been proposed by the White House. A new application of the Facebook and Bing integration rolled out on the search engines. The new Linked Pages allows users to add pages to a Bing search for that user's name and to see associated pages on searches for their Facebook friends. Google+ Circles is now layered over Google Voice, allowing users to manage callers with increased control. Yahoo! has filed suit against Facebook for patent infringement, with the strongest claims directed toward social networking technologies. | Facebook recently changed all brand pages over to the new Timeline format. There are a few pretty cool features that are worth knowing about and some changes to the way brands need to handle applications. Timeline pages have an 850-pixel-wide header image. The new format also allows for a story to be pinned to the top of the Timeline. Hiring? Keep that post up top. Pinned content will sit at top-left of page for seven days. | | | |
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