The Week in Review

The Definitive SEO FAQ Infographic

Do you have questions about the basic nuts and bolts of SEO? Well, this infographic is just for you. It’s a visual guide through keyword research, page optimization, link building, linkbaiting and social media, SEO vs. PPC, and more. (Datadial)

Google Profiles for Local Businesses

While it’s not official news, Google is working on making Google Profiles available for local businesses. "Profiles for businesses would be exciting because they would mark another step in the evolution of Google’s local search strategy. It’s also obviously a move against Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts." This would be a sort of "social hub" for local businesses. (Google Watch)

Link Building: Creating Exceptional for Boring Subjects

Yes, creating exceptional, link-worthy content is important for link building, but what if you’re selling stuff that isn’t exceptional? "Here’s the thing — almost everything can be exceptional if you look hard enough, or slice and dice it, or present it in an interesting way." Here’s a lesson on how to do this, using McDonald’s as a topical example. (Graywolf’s SEO Blog)

Google Punishes BeatThatQuote.com — and Itself

Google just acquired BeatThatQuote.com, a financial price comparison site, on Monday. On Tuesday, the search giant responded to cries of foul against BeatThatQuote.com by penalizing its new acquisition. (Search Engine Land)

Check-Outs Are in

Bizzy, a local-recommendation service, is putting a twist on the concept of checking in by asking its mobile app users to rate a place when they check out. "The information will be added to a place’s rating, but more importantly, it will help further inform Bizzy about a user’s tastes for future recommendations." It’s not the only such app attempting to gather data in order to make personalized recommendations, though the idea of check-outs is catchy. (GigaOM)

Startups Can’t Rely on SEO Anymore

While Yelp, Wikipedia and TripAdvisor are some big informational sites that relied on SEO for their initial growth, in this post-2008 world, SEO just can’t be relied on for starups that have small teams and budgets (and are keen to avoiding black-hat games) to gain marketing traction. (cfdixon.org)

Skype Advertising

Skype announced the launch of advertising in Skype yesterday. Ads will begin to appear in the Home tab starting this week. To start with, Skype is working with companies like Visa and Groupon and will display ads in the U.S., U.K. and Germany. Users have the option of opting out of allowing the company to share non-personally identifiable demographic data with advertisers. (Skype)

How to Build Links with Infographics

Though using infographics to get links is a “saturated tactic,” it still works. “I like infographics, because they’re a great intersection between traditional marketing and manual link building. In this post, I’d like to walk through my process of creating and launching a successful infographic. I’m about to tell you exactly how I’ve gotten clients hundreds of thousands of content views, thousands of social shares, and hundreds of links. It’s a long post, so grab some coffee.” (SEOmoz)

February Display CMPs Fall Year-Over-Year

In February, CPMs for Google Ad Exchange were down 9 percent year-over-year and up 1 percent from January, according to Efficient Frontier. Meanwhile, for Right Media Exchange, CPMs were down 47 percent year-over-year and down 32 percent from January. (Efficient Frontier)

Maximizing CTR for SEO in Organic Results

“Most SEO work goes into technical on-page areas, keyword research and application to a site, and on social media and backlink development, not in maximizing the potential clicks all that work can generate.” While this is understandable, overlooking this aspect of SEO is something that should be remedied. Here’s a look at how to be mindful of how your organic listings appear. (Search Engine Watch)

The Future of ‘F-Commerce’: Limited or Unlimited?

Despite what some people may think, the future of Facebook commerce is pretty bright. Here are some "killer examples of brands selling on Facebook." There are barriers to success, of course, but: "To say Facebook has limited future in e-commerce is far from the truth. In reality, the future is likely to be limitless." (Econsultancy)

Search, Personalization and Recommendation: The Future of Information Consumption

"If someone is mobile, search may not be as relevant as recommendations. If you are looking at niche topics, then search engines are likely a better answer. When focusing on news, personalization like my6sense is probably the best option." Google’s good at search, but is lacking in its social layer. Facebook is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Whoever gets it right on both ends could have the next killer application. (WebProNews)

Spam Tactics Creeping into Business Agreements

"Evil SEO" is getting a lot of attention from Google and mainstream media alike. This post offers an overview of "some of the not-so-obvious spam tactics that are creeping into business agreements, so you can keep your eyes open for partnerships that may compromise your site and your business as a whole." (Bruce Clay Blog)

Inbound Marketing Success in Less Than a Month

Inbound marketing can be a bit daunting at the outset. Here’s one person’s story of success, which took fewer than 30 days. The three steps involved were: optimizing the blog, creating a landing page and adding a call-to-action. This resulted in a 16 percent conversion rate, a 76 percent boost in traffic and 12 new leads. (HubSpot)

Harvesting Demand with PPC Search

Last-click attribution is fine and dandy, but what about going "beyond the last click"? If you’re dealing with imperfect attribution, know which of your keywords are spiking the most and revisit your ad creative and landing pages. "Search marketing shouldn’t sit in a silo, but attribution isn’t the only way to look at search media in comparison to other media. Search is an altogether different beast, because other media and marketing drive search behavior." (ClickZ)

Benefiting from Google’s Anti-Content Farm Algorithm Tweak

Be like Charlie Sheen and win the latest Google algorithm change. If anything, the search landscape just got a lot less competitive. Target the long tail and understand what will make your content stand out as high-quality: links. "So while the algorithm change is bad news for those viewed as content-farms, it doesn’t have to be negative for everyone. It does open more opportunities with less competition for those who can provide true value in their content." (Search Engine Land)

What We Need from Google

"If you got a test back from a teacher in college and the teacher didn’t tell you which questions you got wrong, it would be much harder to learn from your mistakes." (Graywolf’s SEO Blog)

Lifting Conversion Through Curation and Badging

"Evangelist," "long tail," "fat head" and "socializing" — make way for "curation" and "badging," the latest terms marketers have coined/converted in recent years. "If you’re into conversion rate optimization you may want to start sprinkling curation and badging into your pitches because it’s definitely going to have a positive impact on conversion rates." (Search Engine Watch)

The Vortex of Change That is 2011

This post takes a look into the "essences" of the biggest trends in 2011: tablets/mobile/cloud, Foursquare/local/location-based, Facebook/Twitter/Social, and Groupon/discounts/group buying. Read on to learn about the three things advertisers must do to tackle this confluence of trends. (ClickZ)

Response-Based Advertising Shows Promise

AdoTube recently revealed the initial results of testing its response-targeting platforms, "which rely on users’ answering survey questions to determine ads served to them." The results showed that "Response-Based Targeting has lifted click-through and engagement rates from 22% to 35%, view-through rates by 17% and 24%, and brand effectiveness, such as awareness and purchase intent, by more than 30% — pretty interesting, as long as AdoTube Chief Strategy and Operations Officer Steven Jones didn’t overhype the results." (MediaPost)

Making a Great First Impression with Ad Copy and Landing Pages

“Outside of reputation management, there’s an opportunity for a first impression to be made in paid search ads; but advertisers must keep a couple of things in mind when delivering a first impression on behalf of their clients.” Putting the best ads forward, making good on ad promises and closing the loop are all part of this process. (Search Engine Land)

Tracking Click-to-Call Mobile Ad Campaigns

The emergence of mobile means marketers had better get a tighter grip on mobile metrics. Google recently posted a thorough primer on tracking click-to-call mobile ad campaigns. (Google Mobile Ads Blog)

Marketers Should Start Playing Games

How will marketers play a role in the surging popularity of games? There’s a notion that there won’t be any consoles in the future – it’ll all move to the cloud or integrated into other devices. This makes it easier for marketers to get their foot in the door. (MediaPost)

Tuning up Your Paid-Search Account in 15 Minutes

If you have 15 minutes, you have enough time for three quick fixes for your paid-search accounts: 1) testing new ad copy, 2) adding new keywords and 3) adding Google ad extensions. (Search Engine Land)

Google: The Risk and the Opportunity

Another day, another Google algorithm tweak, another stream of websites crying foul. Being less reliant on Google is easier said than done, of course, so we need to start looking for other ways to adopt online marketing strategies that help toward lessening this risk. (SEO Book.com)