Thirteen days until Christmas and no sign of internet marketing slowdown! Last week we saw SMBs declare SEO as their most important marketing tool; the influence websites have on the ads they serve; the quiet arrival of Twitter brand pages; the lack of direct human influence of Google search results; and the impact of social on search.
This Week In Internet Marketing 2011 12 12
SEO Shown to be the Most Important Marketing Channel For SMBs
A recent survey conducted by Merchant Circle asked small to midsize business owners: “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?” The stats show that SEO was found to be the most valuable marketing tool for SMBs. The survey also found that Facebook pages are the most common marketing tool at 70%.
Why Context Matters for Display Ads
It turns out the site where your ad is hosted can influence how effective it is. A study conducted by NeuroFocus sent users to 3 different sites and “measured customer response according to three metrics: attention, emotional engagement, and memory retention.” Facebook scored highest for emotional impact where the New York Time scored the highest for memory retention.
Twitter Brand Pages Are Here (For Some)
Last week Twitter announced Twitter Brand pages. Up until now there has been no distinction between user and brand pages. The release of brand pages coincides with a site-wide redesign and will include the opportunity for “advertisers (to) customize their headers to make their logo and tagline more prominent.”
Can One Person at Google Drop Your Site’s Rank?
A few months ago a classified Google handbook was leaked on the internet. The PDF was a guide for “Google Search Quality Raters” that spelled out specific guidelines on how to rate the relevancy of Google search results. This lead to speculation that a Quality Rater at Google could single-handedly cause a site to drop in rank. Head of Google WebSpam team Matt Cutts dispelled this rumour last week, read the article for his full response.
How Social Search is Changing SEO
This article provides an accurate summary of how social networks are penetrating the search engines and influencing your results. It also outlines what social networks like Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn are doing to make people more searchable e.g. adding skills on LinkedIn allowing for people to become more searchable. Very interesting read and a great place to start if you’re just beginning to wrap your head around social search.
More Internet Marketing Headlines
Google Adds Graphical Math Calculator To Search Results
Apple’s New Campus: Official Pictures Posted