Back in January, Brian Goffman at SearchEngineWatch.com put forth several predictions regarding SEO and social media in the coming year. Commendably, one of his prophecies recently came true in a major way, with Google’s new +1 feature incorporating what people “like” in the virtual world into search engine results. Goffman is careful to remind that sticking to the “durable elements of SEO,” such as quality content, will remain essential to your SEO livelihood.
Read the full story at searchenginewatch.com
While we’re on the topic, SEO and social networking continue their meet-and-greet as Twitter rolls out its Follow Button feature. According to the Twitter release,
For publishers and brands, adding the Follow Button to your website and using Twitter to stay connected with your audience is a powerful combination. People who follow your account are much more likely to retweet and engage with your Tweets, and to repeatedly visit your website.
We all know it’s better to work smarter rather than harder. With that in mind, John D. Leavy of Entrepreneur.com offers up some foundational knowledge for streamlining your online marketing efforts. Understanding and analyzing metrics such as total visits, page rank, and conversion rate can help you realize what’s working and what’s not. Conversion rate is especially important: Through cause/effect, trial/error analysis, you can figure out exactly which merchandising techniques are helping your bottom line.
Read the full story at entrepreneur.com
In an effort to provide more accurate Web site search results while imitating the Tower of Babel, Google, Bing, and Yahoo! will be working together to create an industry standard set of HTML tags. Dubbed “schema,” this unified language will improve the display of search results across different search engines, and in the words of the schema.org statement, make “…it easier for people to find the right web pages.”
See more at schema.org.
While there’s been no denying the impact social media has had on marketing and branding, the measurable impact on sales and conversion has been less than obvious. Until now, that is, if you take Facebook’s recent report to heart. According to SearchEngineLand’s Danny Sullivan, several online retailers, including Levi’s, American Eagle, and Ticketmaster, saw a marked increase in traffic and sales after installing Facebook’s “Like” buttons. Sullivan adds that the numbers are from Facebook’s own reports, so take it with the proverbial grain of salt.
Read the full story at searchengineland.com
