Today the buzzwords in the social media space are community. Everyone is interested in creating community and for good reason. Community is at the heart of human social interaction whether it is online or in the place you live. People do not thrive alone in most cases. There is a need to be connected to someone or something that is more basic than most of us ever admit. It’s an emotional thing which also makes it an elusive thing.

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Data is great if you’re a marketer.  More data is better.  That is until you’re drowning in it.  Are you drowning yet?  A lot of us are. According to Andreas Weigend, the former chief scientist of Amazon.com, “In 2009, more data will be generated by individuals than in the entire history of mankind through 2008.”  

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There are literally thousands of SEO tools out there. Some paid, some free, some good and some not so good. There is one tool that is often overlooked when it comes to SEO, yes, search engine optimisation, and that’s AdWords. While most people see AdWords as simply a paid traffic generation tool, many fail to realize the organic SEO benefits a tool like AdWords can provide. I’ve touched on this subject briefly before but below, I have outlined a few more detailed ways that AdWords can (and should) be used for SEO. Please note that screenshots have been slightly modified to protect some sensitive data.

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This is another subject I have been meaning to discuss that I haven’t seen debated a huge amount openly even though everyone in the industry is aware of it.

Simply checking the UK agencies ranking for ‘SEO’ (as an example) it’s very easy to spot that some of them are using their own clients as a link network to rank for that very term. I am not going to call anyone out or make examples of anyone, they know who they are.

Presumably by doing it they think its fine, so perhaps I can give examples.

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Question: Does it matter for my site’s SEO in Google or other search engines if I use www in the domain name? For example, do I need to use http://www.example.com or can i use http://example.com ?

Answer: It doesn’t matter at all to your SEO in Google, Bing or Yahoo whether you use www in your domain name or not. (more…)

If you rely on local customers to come to your store or service facility, then it is most important that these customers can find you on Google.

If they do their checking before they leave home using their desktop PC, then they may well use Google Local Search. It may be a problem for you to rank well in such a search as a recent Cre8asite Forums discussion points out. As the topic author pointed out, there are Completely And Utterly Farcical Google Local Verification Procedures. The problem is that Google does not support this local search facility with a customer service function. They rely on computer algorithms to identify the location of particular businesses. If that algorithm handles your website incorrectly, then it may be very difficult for you to get that corrected.

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For several years now, I have been talking to anyone and everyone about how the Internet is the great equalizer for small and medium businesses. It can help the little guy play with the big boys. It can help create a David vs. Goliath scenario where the SMB can take the industry giant out with skill and precision. There are so many things that any SMB can do with regard to the Internet that it is mind boggling.

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I’m from an old-school marketing background. I got my marketing degree back in the early 90’s and it helped educate my views on how to market a message or product, and continues to help me shape strategies today.

But there’s one thing that stands out clearly from these early days – the numbers game is utter bullsh*t.

My educator and many of my fellow students subscribed to the theory that numbers are the linchpin of any marketing campaign. The more eyeballs your message reaches, the more potential for interest.

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With the importance of content in online marketing, many businesses are hard pressed to come up with original articles, blog posts, videos, images, presentations, etc on a regular basis.  There’s a myth that once you publish something, that all who matter will see it. That’s simply not true.

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Want to know how to make an SMB (small-medium business) owner or marketer crazy? Tell them that although they are completely convinced that they need to do search engine optimization, or paid search, or whatever else they heard in passing about Internet marketing, that they need to put the brakes on. The reactions range from shock to curiosity to relief and all stops in between. So why would someone who is providing search marketing services tell someone to slow down? It’s something that is not usually native to the search marketing industry. It’s called planning and strategy.

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