September ’10: Best Search/Marketing Posts

Here's my roundup of the best search/marketing posts I found and read during September. If you're new to this blog, this is a monthly feature that began way back in 2007. You can find earlier "Best Of"s for each month in the Link Roundups category archive. I never include my own posts in these end-of-month recaps. Local Search Andrew Shotland/SEL: 13 Questions To Ask Before You Hire A Local SEO Consultant Small Business Miriam Ellis/SEO Igloo: When The Karate Kid Gets Mad – Teaching User Review Crane Technique To Small Business Owners Luther Lowe/Yelp: The Positive Side of Negative Reviews SEO Jill Whalen/High Rankings: Dear Google…Stop Making Me Look Like a Fool! Jessica Bowman/SEM In-House: Google Instant: One Week Later, Thinking About Keyword Research Jonathan Allen/SEW: 7 Reasons Why Google Instant Makes SEO Dead-on Relevant PPC Erin Sellnow/PPC Hero: Identifying & Improving Poor Landing Pages Blogs & Blogging Adam Singer/Future Buzz: The Ongoing Myth That Web Content Must Always Be Short Carol Tice/Copyblogger: 50 Can't-Fail Techniques for Finding Great Blog Topics Stacey Harmon/Agent Applause: Forget Google – Realtor Uses Local Strategies to Win Blog Visibility Social Media Amber Naslund/Brass Tack Thinking: 9 Ways To Build A Twitter Community With Substance Jeremy Blanton/Tech Savvy Agent: 7 Ways to Be Hated On Twitter Brian Massey/SEL: How To Coax Social Media Insights From Google Analytics Tim Ware/Social Media Examiner: How to Create Fan-only Facebook Content Suzanne Roy/Tech Savvy Agent: 5 Hot Real Estate Marketing Tips for Facebook Copywriting Lisa Barone/Small Biz Trends: 12 Tips for Writing Better Content Usability Kim Krause-Berg/SEP: Do It Today: 10 Minute Usability Touch-up Dr. Pete Meyers/SEOmoz: Priceless CRO Advice for $224 Online Marketing/General Andy Sernovitz/Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That: How to become an email marketing genius: The Simmer Linda Bustos/GetElastic: The Promo Code Tactic That Cut Coupon Poaching By 90% Linda Bustos/GetElastic: 6 Ways to Tackle the Promo Code Problem This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing. September '10: Best Search/Marketing Posts Related posts: September '08: Best Search/Marketing Posts September '07: Best Search/Marketing Posts May '09: Best Search/Marketing Posts

Popularity vs. Trust in Social Media I struggle sometimes to explain to clients that it doesn't really matter how many Twitter followers you have, and that getting people to click a "Like" button on your Facebook page doesn't necessarily mean you've suddenly nailed the "trust" thing. It's better to have a smaller following that's more loyal than a huge following of people who don't really care, I say. But I fear that sometimes those words don't sink in, because we learn from a young age that bigger is better when it comes to numbers. More, more, more. So I'm quite glad to see some survey data and a wonderful article that I can share with clients in the future to back up the idea that being popular (i.e., having lots of followers) doesn't automatically mean you have influence and trust. The first thing is a chart from a recent Vocus study on social media influencers. This question, about three hypothetical people and their "fans/friends/followers," got what I'd call the "correct response" from 57% of the respondents. To small business owners, I'd say this: It's okay to only have 100 Twitter followers. In fact, it's better to have 100 Twitter followers who love you and spread your name around to all their friends, than to have 1,000 followers who really don't care one way or another about your company, products, or services. You'll get a lot more mileage out of the 100. How Do You Build a Strong Community of Followers? For that, I'm going to send you elsewhere. Amber Naslund has written a wonderful blog post called 9 Ways To Build A Twitter Community With Substance. It's both theoretical and practical, and I love this conclusion at the end: Remember: Twitter is just the medium. These same principles apply across many things, online and off. It all – always – comes down to your honest intent to build a network of people to talk to, to learn from, to share with. ALL of this depends on your desire to use Twitter that way, and not just to amass a collection of people that you can pimp your junk to. So please go read it. This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing. Popularity vs. Trust in Social Media Related posts: Amazon.com Gets Social Media, Too 7 Traits of a Social Media-Friendly Web Site SEO Igloo: The Dark Side of (some) Social Media