Apparently, I do.
I sift through trillions (well, hundreds) of announcements, articles, and blog posts to find the ones that you might want to be aware of, especially if I feel they could impact your online business traffic generation.
In the spotlight this week:
- more on SEO Ranking Factors 2013;
- Google Keyword Tool is being retired;
- Google SEO advice before and after;
- Facebook updates to Page Terms of Service;
- “Bing me” for higher Klout score;
- the most original YouTube music video (the originality measured in beers);
- your tax dollars at work;
- and more.
Side note: there’s a Slideshare presentation of this Weekly Marketing Skinny at the end of the post – feel free to embed it on your blog to share it with your readers.
Let’s start with the news from Traffic Generation Café.
At TrafficGenerationCafe.com
Have you ever spent hours trying to find a decent available domain name?
How about a great one?
With more then 46 Million active dot com domain names registered, it’s harder and harder to find a catchy domain name that matches your product, service, or website concept that is not already taken.
I came up with the list of 10 domain name suggestion tools to help you to get that creativity flowing.
If you’d like to share this Slideshare presentation with your readers/followers, which I’d very much appreciate, just mouse over it and click on “Embed” to get the code to add to your next blog post.
SEO
SEO Weather Report
Ahhh, SEO temperatures are finally cooling down – according to Mozcast forecast anyway.
As you can see, we’ve had quite a streak of increment weather, but this algorithm storm has passed.
Let’s drink coffee and be merry – I am sure another one is not far behind.
How Google Changed SEO Advice
Here’s what Google used to say about how to improve rankings in their search engine results:
“In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.”
Here’s what they say today:
“In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share.”
The change is definitely consistent with what we’ve been hearing from Google lately.
The head of Google’s web spam fighting team, Matt Cutts, spoke about this in a video to publishers on April 29:
He again repeated himself earlier in June that focusing on link building too much is a mistake by some SEOs:
Matt Cutts: DO Link Out!
Not sure where it all started or who the first blogger who cried “Linking out is ba-a-a-a-d!” was (would love to have a woman-to-(wo)man chat with them), but to put your fears of linking out to rest – here’s how Matt Cutts feels about NOT giving credit where credit is due):
(After he answers the question, he gets into what he personally finds annoying about linking practices)
SEO Ranking Factors 2013
In last week’s Marketing Skinny, I shared a couple of new SEO Ranking Factors studies – one from SearchMetrics.com and one from Netmark.com.
The conclusions from the studies were quite interesting and very different, which naturally, started a few discussions on Google+.
You can read the comments here and here.
Since then, I heard from John Broadbent from Netmark.com who sent me a link to Netmark’s follow-up infographic on what top 10 Google results generally had in common (click to enlarge):
Google Keyword Tool
As you know, the Google Keyword Tool is being replaced by the Google Keyword Planner tool in the next month or so.
Once that happens, to access any AdWords based keyword tool, you will need to sign up for an AdWords account.
Here is the warning Google is showing users:
Social Media
Facebook: the 20% Rule Has Been Lifted
Facebook has just (as of July 1st) updated their Page Terms of Service - the 20% rule was absent from the list of regulations.
In the past, Pages were forbidden from using more than 20% text across their Facebook Page covers. Brands can now feel free to stop guessing at what percentage of text (company names, URLs, contests, etc) made up text and can run free with their font sizes. (source)
Facebook: Upload Custom Images for Link Posts
Facebook Page Admins now have the ability to upload their own image for any link posts.
“Bing Me” for Higher Klout Score
If your Klout scores matters to you, it might be time to start asking people to “Bing me” rather than “Google me.”
That’s because Klout is now using Bing search popularity as part of its online influence measurement. The number of times that a person is searched for on Bing is now contributing to Klout scores. (source)
Twitter #Hashtags on Autocomplete
Twitter has finally introduced an auto-complete function for trending hashtags to the web, making it possible for users to find popular content more quickly.
The Most Original YouTube Music Video?
U.K. band Moones have just put out arguably one of the most original music videos in the YouTube video era.
On the surface, it’s simply the band playing their new song “Better Energy” in a single room. But upon further inspection, you realize that you have to ability to change one little aspect of the performance with a click of your mouse.
Moones has allowed you, the viewer, to control just how drunk they all are during the video. You can switch it around to make them perform the song after no beers, 20 beers, 40 beers, 60 beers, or 80 beers. (source)
How would you apply that to YOUR business?
WordPress
Is WordPress SEO by Yoast Broken?
I don’t use WordPress SEO by Yoast at Traffic Generation Café, but I know many of you do.
I am not taking sides, because I don’t know either way.
The only reason I am mentioning this possible bug (published by Tom Ewer at ManageWP.com) is for you to double-check your settings to make sure that the plugin is doing everything you “asked” it to do.
And, as always, make sure you back up your blog and update to the current version (goes for every plugin on your blog).
Marketing This & That
Yahoo! Graveyard
Google is not the only tech company that has a taste for nixing things.
Take a look at the list of projects Yahoo! is planning to end in the near future:
- Yahoo! Axis (June 28, 2013)
- Yahoo! Browser Plus (June 28, 2013)
- Citizen Sports (June 28, 2013)
- Yahoo! WebPlayer (June 30, 2013)
- FoxyTunes (July 1, 2013)
- Yahoo! RSS Alerts (July 1, 2013)
- Yahoo! Neighbors Beta (July 8, 2013)
- AltaVista (July 8, 2013)
- Yahoo! Stars India (July 25, 2013)
- Yahoo! Downloads Beta (July 31, 2013)
- Yahoo! Local API (September 28, 2013)
- Yahoo! Term Extraction API (September 28, 2013)
Terms & Conditions and Our Privacy
Nothing digitize is ever private – and we AGREE TO IT!
Terms and Conditions May Apply Official Trailer #1 (2013)
Your Tax Dollars At Work
The US State Department spent $630,000 buying Facebook likes via ad campaigns between 2011 and March 2013, then ended up with very low engagement rates when the campaigns ended.
The discovery, first reported by the Washington Examiner, comes via an Inspector General’s office (IG) audit that examined the State Department’s Bureau of Information Programs. (source)
They could’ve saved themselves a lot of trouble and us, the tax-payers, a chunk of money, had they read my post on How to Get More Facebook Fans…
Keep Up Or Be Left Behind
Would you like to be in the know as news (marketing or otherwise) happen?
Then join me on Google+ – it has become my new favorite platform to learn, teach, and have fun.
Thank You
To all of you who mentioned Traffic Generation Café in any share or form in the past week, my whole-hearted THANK YOU.
Traffic Generation Café would NOT be what it is today without you.
Here are just some of the mentions I came across in the past week:
Blog Link Roundups
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote 10+ Blog Link Roundups to Get Traffic From.
The reason the title has a “+” is because, even though I started with only ten blogs that were doing marketing roundups at the time, there are a few more I added to the list:
- Kimberley Grabas at YourWriterPlatform.com
- Joseph Adediji at BloggingTipsToday.com
- MaAnna Stephenson at BlogAid.net
- Kimberley Castleberry at Just-Ask-Kim.com
- Sherryl Perry at KeepUpWithTheWeb.com
- Vernessa Talor at FamousBloggers.net
Click here to see the full list.
If you are still on the fence about starting your own link roundup or simply want to keep up with your reading, here’s a new resource my friend Chris Fong has just released: Bloggerscope.
Bloggerscope is a great way to stay on top of the most popular posts currently shared around the web. You can learn more about it here:
Have I missed your mention? Let me know in the comments!
Want to see your name here? Mention Traffic Generation Café in your next blog post!
Embed This Weekly Marketing Skinny on Your Blog
Would love to share this Weekly Skinny with your blog readers?
I created this Slideshare presentation just for you – all you need to do is to mouse over it to get the embed code and add it to your post.
To an even better next week,
Please share on Google NOW