The Week in Review

Search Predictions for 2012

Here’s a roundup of what some search experts thought were the most important industry trends in 2011, and what their predictions and hopes for 2012 are. For example, looking back on 2011, Teddie Cowell of Guava thought mobile and Google+ were the most significant trends. Will Critchlow of Distilled expects a “Panda for links” in 2012. (Econsultancy)

A Review of Link-Building Tool Ontolo

Ontolo offers a set of tools designed to find link prospects based on topic, link types and provided phrases. “In a nutshell, Ontolo finds sites you can contact for links.” (Search Engine Land)

A Review of WordStream’s PPC Grader

WordStream’s PPC Grader “offers us paid marketers a unique snapshot that can be really useful when first getting started with a company or client.” Account Diagnostics, Impression Share and Text-Ad Optimization are some of the sections in the PPC Grader, which is the best of it’s kind out there. (SEOmoz)

5 Best Practices for Digital Marketers in 2012

Here are five best practices – or “resolutions,” if you will – for marketers in 2012: 1) own your voice, don’t share it; 2) resolve to be relevant; 3) context is king and content is queen; 4) the data is smarter, so you should be smarter too; 5) they’ve changed the channel. (Mashable)

Holiday Season Email Marketing Highlights

Email marketing during the 2011 holiday season was a “wild ride.” It looked quite different from past holiday seasons and sets the tone for next year’s holiday season. Some highlights are that retailers relied more on email marketing during the holiday season (especially early and late); Thanksgiving Day is the new kickoff to the holiday shopping season; and free shipping is now the norm for the holiday season. (MediaPost)

Chinese Government Endorses Pop-up Ads

The Chinese government notably left pop-up ads off its list of forbidden online activities. “The document does instruct pop-up ad makers to provide a more obvious and clear way for ads to be closed, but essentially pop-up ads now have the green light to continue to pester Internet users in China.” (The Next Web)

How Facebook Will Take Over the World in 2012

As recent as 2009, Facebook was an insignificant part of social media. Now it accounts for 95 percent of time spent on social services worldwide. In 2012, Facebook will take over the world, thanks to marketing on its site, apps and its pending IPO, among other things. (VentureBeat)

SMO Is SEO’s Brother

Social media optimization (SMO) has taken its cue from search engine optimization (SEO). “At this point in its evolution, SMO can be defined as setting up your company’s social media assets and activities in order to get the most overall online presence and audience interaction and boost sales.” The key for SMO success is building a strategy that focuses on socializing your site’s content. (Social Media Today)

The Top 5 Trends for Search and Social Media Marketing in 2012

Here are five predictions for the search and social media marketing landscape in 2012: 1) mainstream organizations will adopt marketing automation and social CRM; 2) social media will become a more prominent factor in search algorithms; 3) customers and employees will become an extended part of companies’ marketing teams; 4) mobile and social will evolve together to create new user scenarios; and 5) daily deals will receive prominence in search engine results pages. (Search Engine Watch)

18 SEO Experts Talk About How to Do SEO in 2012

Here are tips from 18 SEO experts on the quickly changing SEO industry in 2012. Among the experts quoted are Rand Fishkin, Will Critchlow and Neil Patel. The topics covered include SEO tactics to stop using in 2012. (Edgy SEO)

4 Ways to Engage Email Non-Responders

Many marketers view opens and clicks as the two most important email metrics. But maybe it’s time to focus on unengaged subscribers. Here are four ways to win them back: 1) analyze the true data, 2) segment and customize, 3) automate a re-engagement series and 4) ask them. (ClickZ)

Getting Started With Social Media Ads

It’s tough to ignore the advantages and payoffs from social media advertising. "With social media, organizations are able to not only engage mainstream media and top influencers, but other targeted groups and individuals." Once you figure out your daily budget and choose your keywords, it’s time to target, test and pick platforms. (PR News)

4 Social Media Trends to Watch for in 2012

Social media had itself a good year in 2011. In 2012, keep an eye peeled for the rise of mobile sites, user-generated content paving the way for social SEO, the growing importance of apps and real-time social advertising. (Social Media Today)

The Year in Facebook Advertising

Facebook made significant progress with its on-site advertising this past year. Among the improvements were Sponsored Stories, its self-serve ad tool, local advertising and user support. Next year will "likely to be the year of the Sponsored Story as more advertisers become familiar with the offering and possibly see increased performance versus traditional Facebook display ads." (Inside Facebook)

Tips on How to Improve Your Website

"To keep your website relevant, gaining new links, keeping users satisfied and getting traffic from search engines, you need to have a maintenance plan." Some of the things that should be on your checklist are to perform a content audit, improve internal linking and stop renewing domains you aren’t using. Remember that small improvements performed regularly are better than big ones made infrequently. (Graywolf’s SEO Blog)

SOPA Explained

You’ve likely heard of SOPA and PIPA by now, but do you really understand what the fuss is about? Here are five multimedia explainers, including an animated video, an infographic and a map. (Mediabistro’s 10,000 Words)

SEO Lemons

Though many view traffic from SEO as "free," the price of effective SEO is set by the competition. There are companies without the experience or knowledge needed that are aggressively vying for a piece of the lucrative SEO pie — or the whole thing. Knowledge, patience and investment are among the factors that need to be part of the solution. (SEO Book.com)

Google, Facebook and Yahoo Finish 2011 as the Top Web Brands

According to Nielsen, Google was the top U.S. Web brand in 2011, with an average of 153.4 million unique visitors per month. Facebook, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live/Bing and YouTube followed. Nielsen also noted that the top social network/blog was Facebook, while the top smartphone manufacturers were Apple (29 percent of the market) and HTC (21 percent). (Nielsen)

Why Google Is Picky About Profile Pictures

MG Siegler recently encountered Google’s pickiness regarding his profile photo on Google+. "The thinking is, as I understand it, that if you get a bunch of weird and/or offensive pictures coming up in search results it reflects poorly on the quality of these search results, even if the content is just fine." (WebProNews)

U.S. Online Holiday Spending in 2011: $35.3 Billion

According to comScore, holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 56 days of the November-December 2011 holiday season was $35.3 billion, up 15 percent from the same time period last year. "One of the interesting e-commerce phenomena occurring over the past several years is the dramatic increase in Christmas Day purchases of Digital Content & Subscriptions, a retail category that includes digital downloads of music, TV, movies, e-books and apps." (comScore)