Last week Donny discussed social rank and Danny Sullivan's post on the topic. Today I came across an article called, "Why 'Social Rank' Will Die in 2011". It seems as though the author believed spammers would kill 'social rank' as they kill many other things in relation to SEO...and he may be right, but I want to be the devil's advocate.
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Your first question might be "What do you mean Google is launching Chrome OS, it's already been out for a year and a half," and you'd be right. However, Google held an official launch event today in which they detailed some of the advancements the OS has made during its time in development and, more importantly, outlined when and how consumers will be able to get their hands on official Chrome OS-touting hardware. Let's start with the features.
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There are far too many businesses that don't pay attention or take advantage of all of the local opportunities there are on the web. From location based services like Yelp to your Google or Bing local listing, you must give your website/business the opportunity to be visible to local searchers. In the past couple of months I have tried to check in to various restaurants that either had incorrect addresses on Yelp or just weren't on there all together.
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LinkedIn recently released it's own Share button much like the frequently used Facebook Like button and Twitter share buttons. They are clearly very late to the game, but in this case, it's certainly better late than never.
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NPR is fairly good at staying on top of emerging tech and web trends. Yesterday's story that caught my attention was regarding users concern with Facebook privacy...and what may happen to the social world in the future as a result. As stated in the program, and I think we can all agree, Facebook is not the end-all to social networks. Bigger and better are bound to come at some point. While there are many startups out there that hope they can be the next big thing in social, the one discussed on NPR caught my attention.
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With Google nipping at the heels of Groupon, a socially-aware "deal of the day" website that provides its users with 1 amazing deal in their city everyday, and with Amazon having just invested in Groupon's top competitor LivingSocial, it would seem that location-based deals are the next big thing when it comes to online retail opportunities. You might be interested in taking advantage of the deals either website is offering, but more importantly if you're a small business owner this is an excellent opportunity to gain new customers.
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As we have been telling our small business clients for some time, it has been made very clear that social media will soon have an effect on search engine ranks. Well, it looks like the time has already come. In a blog post released today, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land revealed some insights into how Google and Bing are currently using social involvement in their algorithms.
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Coremetrics has released some initial data for Black Friday sales and the outcome for online retailers is looking great. Overall there was a 15.9% increase in sales between Black Friday 2009 and Black Friday 2010, and the average price per order is also up by 12.1% (from around $170 per order to $190.80).
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I think that we can all agree that referrals are probably the best lead generation tools out there. This post is not about the power of referrals though...for more on that check out The Referral Engine by John Janstch. This post is about online reviews, the digital referral, from complete strangers or sometimes acquaintances. These days the more online 'referrals' you have, the more likely the reader will pay attention to your business. Not all online or real life referrals are good, there are bad as well. As we have seen, the online community is not afraid to to talk about bad experiences. So what do you do when you get a bad review online?
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Happy Thanksgiving! I would be remiss if I didn't say how thankful I am every day to work in such a great industry with amazing co-workers, clients and vendors. I am certainly appreciative that you are reading this post today as well!
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If you are executing digital marketing, congratulations! You are most likely already one step ahead of your competition, and making strides to meaningfully connect with prospects online. But, how do you know if you’re seeing continual success year over year, and improving your metrics?
Without the tools in place to analyze and benchmark your efforts, it is impossible to scale your online marketing and ensure continuous success.
