Google : Bruce Clay Blog
January 30, 2012Google’s New Privacy Policy 101: You In or Out?
Have you taken a moment to read about Google’s new privacy policy and how it affects the information you share, effective March 1?
Privacy policies and terms of service aren’t exactly riveting literature, so if you haven’t rushed into cuddling up with the thing and getting to know it better, I don’t blame you. So, I thought I’d take a few minutes to give an overview of what it is and the important takeaways.
In sum, Google’s new privacy policy is essentially a way for Google to try and ensure there won’t be mass public freak-outs or lawsuits over the new “Search, plus Your World” function, as well as more and more personalized search results to come.
And as much as Google is trying to make this information public and available to its users, let’s be real, freak-outs will still ensue.
January 26, 2012
16 SEM Predictions, Understand Search + Your World, Guide to Google’s Freshness Score
Our first newsletter of 2012 is packed with search marketing goodness, and we’re giving you a sneak peek into this month’s articles before it hits inboxes everywhere.
If you love this edition, go ahead and subscribe to our SEO Newsletter; it’s a great way to ensure you’re up to date on the industry’s hot topics and provides a deeper glimpse into some of the trends and issues online business faces every month.
So, without further adieux, here are the highlights of January’s SEO Newsletter.
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January 9, 2012
Google Caught Buying Links: Bruce Clay’s Analysis
Hate to say I told you so… scratch that. This time it feels good.
Last month we let you in on the new direction of SEM Synergy: short-form video with an experimental format (Q&As, site reviews, couch-side kick backs). Today we’re happy to present to you the first video episode of the SEM Synergy Web series.
Topic du jour: Google instituting a ranking penalty on its Chrome browser after paid links were uncovered.
Find the transcript for the video below, and check out the Bruce Clay, Inc. YouTube channel for a look at our still evolving platform for the video series. If you like it, come back tomorrow as we dissect the process of producing and publishing video content. As we learn, we plan to share our experiences with trying to create sticky and interesting show. To that end, I do my best Larry King impression as we dive into a hot, timely issue.
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January 6, 2012
How to Choose Social Media Share Buttons
Social share buttons are a great way to spread the content you have deeper into networks across the Web – but which social share buttons are right for your site? Sometimes, the “catch-all” approach to buttons that we so often see isn’t the best route. You know, those widgets that produce a bunch of buttons for social communities for the sake of trying to reach everybody and their mother. Oftentimes, this can just confuse readers or make them think more than they should have to in order to share the content they like.
There are several approaches to how you can identify which social share buttons you should include on your Web pages. One is checking traffic sources in your site’s analytics. Another is knowing who your target audience is and where they are hanging out socially online. And yet another is assessing the importance of individual social share buttons as metrics in whatever goals you have for the business.
Virginia and I recently decided to do an analysis of the social share buttons on the SEO Newsletter article pages, since they hadn’t been refreshed in quite some time. I’m going to share with you what we uncovered about some of the social share buttons, what we plan to do with it and how you can better assess the social share buttons on your (or your client’s) site.
Read more of How to Choose Social Media Share Buttons.
December 29, 2011
Best of Search Conferences 2011: Day 2
Internet marketing conferences are an exciting resource for those in the SEO and SMM community, offering the most up-to-date and cutting-edge info from experts finding great success marketing online, as well as popular search engine and social media platform employees themselves. You may not have been able to attend all the Internet marketing conferences you wanted to this year, but we reported on many. We’ve categorized the most popular sessions and compiled the liveblog coverage highlights to report all week. Today’s tracks bring you strategic and tactical recommendations for social media marketing and local search and services.
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December 6, 2011
What Internet Marketing Can Teach Us About Interpersonal Communication
Audience: Web marketers
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Nobody knows how to communicate to a business’ customers better than Internet marketers (backed by the wisdom of the business owner, of course). Our job is to listen to and anticipate what people want, and then deliver it to them.
Web marketing teaches us many lessons in communications — how to listen, how to speak, how to understand needs and react accordingly. Think about all the things we as professionals can learn from this craft and apply to our interpersonal communications. Let’s explore …
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December 2, 2011
Web Marketing Tactics: Google+ Business Pages, 2011 Algorithm Updates, Mobile Site Design & More!
Interested in understanding and optimizing the new Google+ business pages? How about a recap of Google’s big-news algorithm changes of 2011 and how to tackle them? Or what about a tutorial on writing calls to action, or best practices for mobile website design?
All this and more is in this month’s SEO Newsletter, published today. This post dives into the highlights of December’s issue. Don’t miss the tips for this months trends in Web marketing plus foundational concepts in our SEO Newsletter this month.
Read more of Web Marketing Tactics: Google+ Business Pages, 2011 Algorithm Updates, Mobile Site Design & More!.
November 23, 2011
There’s No Such Thing as “Gray Hat” SEO
If you’ve been in the SEO field more than five minutes, you’ve likely become familiar with the informal “Black Hat”/”White Hat” classification system for SEO techniques. White Hat methods involve creating useful, original methodologies and content for humans, and then presenting that content so that search engines can find it and show it to whoever’s looking for it. Black Hat techniques involve deceiving users and search engines in order to achieve rankings without providing long-term value and potentially causing the client harm.
Then there’s a third category of techniques that don’t fall easily into either the “white” or “black” category. They seem to exist at the borderline between the two, an ethical gray area, so they’re referred to as “Gray Hat.” The problem with Gray Hat techniques, however, is that they don’t exist.
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November 16, 2011
The Endurance Contest: Tips to Maximize Social Media Staying Power
If the name of the social media marketing game is to reach as many people as possible in a number of communities, then the strategy must include maximizing the longevity of that content before it is forgotten and relegated to the past. To say that things move fast and people and brands share a lot [...]
November 8, 2011
#Winning with Google Places — PubCon Vegas
Welcome back to our PubCon liveblog coverage. We’re about to get jiggy with Google Places optimization. Brian Combs of Ionadas Local is presenting for us. He promises us there will be no more Charlie Sheen references from this point on.
Read more of #Winning with Google Places — PubCon Vegas.
