The Week in Review

Search Ranking Factors for 2011

SEOmoz has released the results for its Search Ranking Factors survey for 2011. Included are the opinions of 132 SEOs around the globe, along with data from more than 10,000 Google results. Among the key takeaways are that SEOs think the power of links has declined, diversity of links is more important than raw quantity, using keywords earlier in tags/docs seems wise, and Facebook may have more influence than Twitter. (SEOmoz)

Q1 2011 Open Rates Increase in North America

According to recent figures from Epsilon and the Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council, open rates in North America in the first quarter of 2011 were 23.3 percent, up 4.2 percent from the same period in 2010 and up 5.6 percent over the previous quarter. The average volume per client surged 39.2 percent year-over-year. The average click rate was 5.9 percent. (Epsilon)

Google Set to Track and Rank Individual Content Creators

Google has begun indexing attribution of content to authors, and not just to the websites the content appears on. “Links associated with the author of a page can now have the code rel="author" added to them and Google will understand that to mean that the linked name is the linking page’s author. That’s a potentially significant change to the balance of power between sites and the individuals that create for them.” (ReadWriteWeb)

iPad Gets More Ad Engagement Than Other Devices

The latest mobile rich-media benchmarks released by Medialets for the first quarter of 2011 show that ads for iPad apps get higher engagement rates for rich-banner and rich-interstitial ads than other devices. The larger screen, sit-down experience, richness and audience of the iPad are all key factors. (Medialets)

Creating a Great ‘About Us’ Page

A solid “About Us” page is an essential element of a trusted website. They also don’t have to be boring. “About Us” pages are where springing for Flash, JavaScript and Ajax can be good rather than distracting. Use them to build links, too. (Graywolf’s SEO Blog)

How to Fight Banner Blindness

A study from last year found that 43 percent of consumers ignore online display ads, which makes sense despite the fact that they can often help consumers save money, research products and get updates on our favorite brands. But how can marketers fight this “banner blindness”? Use Flash instead of GIFs, take advantage of remarketing, give users the knowledge they need to differentiate you from the rest, use promotions and offers, get creative with the artwork, and remember the value of building brand awareness. (iMediaConnection)

The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Marketing

Facebook is a large monster to tackle. Doing it well requires a healthy dose of knowledge, which is just what this behemoth of a roundup offers. Here’s a list of resources to refer to regarding various topics related to Facebook marketing, including privacy and security, setting up a Facebook page, getting people to like your page, and adding Facebook applications. (Copyblogger)

SEO Tips for Facebook Pages

Facebook commerce continues to grow in prominence, which means brands are beginning to send more traffic directly to their Facebook pages. However, it can be hard to get Facebook pages to rank well in search engine results pages. Here’s a walkthrough for overcoming the natural hurdles that exist between you and SEO success for your brand’s Facebook page. “For the moment, optimising Facebook pages is a fairly straightforward, albeit time-consuming process. The results and effects of your efforts may be subject to change however so overall it makes sense to cover as much as possible.” (Econsultancy)

Social Media’s Share of the Marketing Pie

According to various reports from various organizations, it looks like companies are freely spending more of their marketing budgets on social media. For example, according to HubSpot, 18 percent of inbound lead-generation budgets will be allocated to blogs ad social media in 2011, double its 9 percent share in 2009. (The Next Web)

8 Tips for Blogger Outreach

SEOs should be in the business of building relationships with a network of bloggers. Having an ongoing conversation with such a network can make promotion efforts a lot easier. Among the eight tips for building this network are to use flattery, working around hard-to-find email addresses and utilizing Twitter lists. (SEOmoz)

Display Ads Are Valuable Branding Tools

Display campaigns are helpful branding tools, according to recent research shared by Lotame, an audience data intelligence company. The study polled Web users exposed and not exposed to several ad campaigns about whether they would recommend the product being advertised. The result was an overall lift of 24 percent in the likelihood to recommend a product among the exposed group. This lift was nearly 32 percent for entertainment campaigns, while the lift was nearly 12 percent for non-entertainment campaigns. (eMarketer)

Google Offers and Payments Are About Search

Calling Google Offers a “Groupon Killer” misses the point. At the heart of the Offers and Wallet combo might be search. “As is often the case with Google’s ancillary products, they are in the end a collective moat around its true profit center.” Offers and Wallet will close “the loop to offline conversion in a way that’s always been missing from search.” (Search Engine Watch)

Ranking Factors for Local Search

This year’s “Local Search Ranking Factors” survey attempts to shed some light into how to improve your ranking in Google Places. A total of 33 respondents were asked to rank 79 possible positive factors and 18 possible negative factors that drive Google’s Local Search algorithms. The top three most recommended factors to focus on are: physical address in city of search, manually owner-verified Place page and proper category associations. (David Mihm)

When Top Search Results Go Below the Fold

“We’re about to enter a new era where search engine optimization (the work of gaining those high links) is going to need to adapt, not just to tweaks in technology to determine top position, but to the fact that ‘top position’ is going to be way farther down the page than it used to be.” The three big, new ideas that are being implemented into search engine results pages to push down top results from organic search (and, potentially, decease their value) are: social media, multimedia and tools. While these factors make SEO harder, it also makes it better – it will reward brands that take SEO as a business practice seriously. (ClickZ)

CTRs Surge 311% When Brands Direct Facebook Ad Traffic to Facebook Pages

A look at more than 2,000 Facebook campaigns found that click-through rates are 311 percent better when brands send Facebook ad traffic to Facebook pages instead of to a company’s website. There are a number of reasons why this happens, including lower cost per click and the launch of Sponsored Stories. There are still cases when sending Facebook ad traffic to your website makes more sense. (Webtrends)

Does Twitter Affect Search Rankings?

The short answer is yes. Maybe the more interesting question, then, is how. Here’s a rundown of six studies and their findings, along with three takeaways: 1) always post the link on Twitter when you publish a new article, 2) try to have 2-3 or more people who will always tweet your links, and 3) try to have the tweet come from a well-respected, influential and relevant Twitter account. (SEOmoz)

Four Innovations in Mobile Ads

The dawn of mobile advertising 3.0 is upon us. What does the third era of mobile advertising have in store? Mobile reward ads (gamification), non-native app store marketing, local mobile ads and mobile performance ad networks. (Business Insider)

6 Tips for Email Subscriber Engagement

Keeping email subscribers engaged has been a difficulty for email marketers in recent years. "Engaged subscribers, generally defined as recipients who have opened, clicked on, or otherwise interacted with an email message in the previous 3-6 months, often make up only 30-40% of an email marketer’s database." This, along with the rapidly changing realm of email at the subscriber level, means that marketers must have a plan in place to boost engagement in their email programs. Among six tips for doing this are using the "welcome series" to set expectations, looking for triggers and rewarding engagement. (MarketingProfs)

Google, Bing and Yahoo Team up for Schema.org

In a move to support a common set of schemas (i.e., HTML tags that webmasters can use to mark up their pages in ways recognized by major search providers), Google, Bing and Yahoo have teamed up to launch Schema.org. The objective appears to be two-fold: giving sites tools and tips for appearing in search results, and helping search engines to better understand websites. (WebProNews, Search Engine Land)

When to Put Your Landing Page on Someone Else’s Site

SEO campaign managers need to decide where their content is going to live. The protocol is to "write some good content on the site you’re optimizing, but to also sprinkle some guest content on other sites, both for recognition and for links." However, there are some instances when the best place for a landing page is on a site you don’t control. This post highlights five such scenarios, as well as ways to get SEO value out of off-site landing pages. (Search Engine Land)

Email Reputation Now a Google Ranking Factor?

Google is always tweaking its algorithm for its search results pages, this we know. But how much of its algorithm is based on off-page factors? One website operator thinks Google’s algorithm takes into account email reputation. While this hunch is based on “a tip from someone at Google,” it’s only natural to expect more off-page factors affecting SERPs in the future. (Econsultancy)

34% of Mobile Marketers Haven’t Measured ROI

According to a recent study from King Fish Media sponsored by HubSpot, Junta42 and Maxymiser, 34 percent of mobile marketing companies in North America haven’t measured ROI for their existing mobile marketing campaigns, while 29 percent said they didn’t know their ROI for some other reason. (eMarketer)

Display Ads on Twitter

Twitter appears to be pulling a lot of strings lately as it pushes toward better monetization. One way the company could do this would be by unveiling banner ads on Twitter.com and related services. Ads might appear on photos, Twitter.com or on TweetDeck. Twitter currently has about 600 advertisers. Why the low number? The company’s CEO said Twitter is in no hurry to monetize its product and doesn’t want to pollute tweet streams with ads. (AllTwitter, TechCrunch)

HTTP Status Codes From an SEO’s Perspective

If you’re an SEO who has yet to really nail down the whole HTTP status code thing, this infographic should help. The infographic offers visual explanations of what 200, 301, 302, 404, 500 and 503 HTTP status codes mean. (SEOmoz)

Google +1 Makes Its Way Across the Web

Google introduced its +1 button in March for its search results and ads, but yesterday the company made these +1 buttons available for the whole Web. This is, of course, a direct jab at Facebook and their like buttons. But is social validation compelling for search users? (International Business Times, ReadWriteWeb)