Top SEO and Social Media Developments of 2010

• By: SEO Inc
• Categories: Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing
• Comments: 7

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Google’s “Mayday” Update

Depending on your website, it was either the best of times or the worst of times. Either way, Google’s Mayday updated occured. The update happened between April 28th and May 3rd and business started feeling the effects in their search engine optimization shortly after. The shift happened due to an algorithmic change in Google, a shift Google defends because of what they say is an effort to create the best matches for long tail queries. This forced a lot of sites to reevaluate their keyword assignments and make them more specific and better support thier keyword hub structure. This algorithmic change isn’t going anywhere anytime soon so expect to keep refining your long tail keywords into 2011.

Why Companies Need a Diversified SEO and SMO Approach in 2011

• By: SEO Inc
• Categories: Google, Social Media Optimization
• Comments: 2

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Let’s be honest here, SEO (and organic online marketing in general) is changing. The main reason for this, well, it’s a simple changing of the guard. Google is still the dominant website to focus SEO efforts on, but there are some serious new players online that are attracting traffic numbers that rival Google, and this cannot be ignored. Who are the major organic traffic players now beyond Google? Some include Bing, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Digg, Google Places and industry niche sites. This diversification in online traffic potential demands a well distributed organic online marketing portfolio.

Uh-Oh! Your Company’s Epic Facebooking Efforts Won’t Go Viral in Michigan

• By: SEO Inc
• Categories: Facebook, Search Engine Optimization
• Comments: 0

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Online, your company may be headed for big things with a social media campaign, but at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan you have no chance of ever going viral – the ever popular social marketing term has been relegated to their annual list of “banished words.”

The list of banished words was selected from more than 1,000 online nominations of terms so overused in 2010, their nominators think they should be banned in 2011. Second to last on the list of 14 banished words was using Facebook/Google as verbs – something we’re very guilty of doing around here.

The full Lake Superior State University 2011 List of Banished Words is as follows:

Why you need a Keyword Assignment for SEO

• By: SEO Inc
• Categories: Search Engine Optimization
• Comments: 0

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Search engine optimization demands a keyword assignment. Let me tell you why.

SEO Goals
The SEO keyword assignment helps you determine the goals of the campaign. Without goals, how can you measure success? First, you need to determine the scope of the project, i.e. how many pages will you be optimizing for search? Following that, you need to attribute specific keywords to each of those pages. Once you know how many pages you will be optimizing, and what the keywords are that you would like to get those pages ranked for, you can then start search engine optimization.

Provide a Theme for Pages
Although adding keywords to pages for SEO may feel forced at times, you are really doing your website, the search engines and the overall online world justice. You are making it easier for search engines and subsequently, users, to find a piece of content that has been created specifically surrounding that keyword. For example, say you are a light bulb store. Here is an example keyword assignment for your 60 watt light bulb page.

Now choosing these keywords takes a tremendous amount of strategy and thought. For instance, each of these keywords has low search count. While that is the case, they are fairly niche and refined, which gives you a better chance to rank. This is, however, assumedly, an interior page of your website, so you understand that this is a niche page. With this in mind you can optimize the category leading into this page for broader term. Then, refine your cross linking in the product level pages to support that broad term the category is optimized for.

Is About.me the Next Big Thing for Online Reputation Management?

• By: SEO Inc
• Categories: Reputation Management
• Comments: 0

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About.me has been bought by AOL. The online startup was launched just a year ago and was acquired before it ever had a chance to do business, kind of sad…

About.me started allowing users to create profiles in September of 2010. But it had only been officially launched for a few days before AOL made an offer. While we don’t know how much About.me was sold for, we do know that Tony Conrad, co-founder of About.me and serial entrepreneur, has a close relationship with AOL. In 2008, Conrad sold his previous company “Sphere” to AOL for over 20 million.

About.me is a simple website with a simple concept. Just sign up and create a profile about yourself or your business. Choose from a list of integration options, whether you would like to feature your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, personal blog, Flicker account, etc, it is all possible. But what does this all mean for online reputation management?

JCPenney Opens First COMPLETE Store within Facebook

• By: SEO Inc
• Categories: Facebook, Social Media Marketing
• Comments: 0

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Earlier this week JCPenney became the first MAJOR retailer to make its entire catalog of products available on Facebook—not just to browse and look at, but to buy. Although smaller retailers like 1-800-FLOWERS have already opened full e-commerce sites on Facebook, JCPenney appears to be the largest retailer to do it so extensively via the social media outlet.

JCPenney has pushed not just some products, but its ENTIRE catalog to Facebook. Now shoppers can purchase any of the 250,000 items that the store sells online, without ever leaving the Facebook page. In addition to the “shop” tab that allows customers to place items in a shopping bag as they would on any other retail website, the JCPenney Facebook page also includes a “share” button where fans can re-post their favorite items. JCPenney expects more sales will take place as a result of shoppers seeing items listed in their friends’ news feeds.