Black Hat SEO News

Feedback is critical to any business, and an increasing array of social tools have entered the market to allow the regular flow of feedback to course throughout an organization. Foremost amongst these have been the kind of performance appraisal systems developed by various companies.

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As B2B spending trends head upward, tracking needs to grow equivocally, which it’s not. As we sneak our way towards 2014, incremental strategic changes need to be implemented into what we’ll dub as B2B lead nurturing strategies for 2014.

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When it comes to your business, you must have a strategy for your social media marketing efforts. If you don’t have a strategy in place, you will not to really make good progress. At least not the progress that you will make if you do have the strategy working for you.

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There’s a lot to love about having your posts syndicated. More visibility. More reach. More traffic. More influence. More social sharing. Same goes for writing guest blog posts – if content marketing is your strategy, mastering website selection for where to place that content is essential.

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Paid search marketing combined with Facebook Ads create a 1-2 punch that yields higher returns on ad spend, higher average order value, slightly better click through rates and a little lower cost per acquisition. Now we have to ask the magic question. Why?

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The internet is a global system of interconnected computer systems blah blah blah where www stands for both World Wide Web and Who Where Why. The way I look at it is a collective of people, data, and things. Understand that it is what it is. But its true nature and potential are yours to define.

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When I value a company’s content enough to want to know when they’ve made new stuff available, I use an amazingly old school “new” strategy. I give them my email address and they send me email. Email remains the king of online media. It’s the one platform everyone has and no one ignores.

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Yes, the most asked question of 2013, according to Ask.com, was "What is the Royal Baby’s Name?" Ask.com also revealed the top news, celebrity, and political search terms and questions of 2013. Here's a look back at the year that was on Ask.com.

Microsoft has escalated its war on Google with their Scroogled campaign by releasing a line of Scroogled branded items such as T-shirts and mugs. Google seems to be taking the latest assault in stride, having a bit of fun at Microsoft's expense.

Google's Matt Cutts has put out an open call on his personal blog asking for suggestions for what people would like to see added or changed in Webmaster Tools for 2014. Cutts first did this in 2007, and many of those suggestions were implemented.

B2B marketing is always challenging, but even more so when you are in a crowded market space filled with tough competitors. There are a number of ways to stand out from the crowd, but one of the most neglected weapons in the B2B marketing arsenal is an offer that gains attention and drives action.

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I’m an advocate of integrated working, so I’m all for SEOs and Social Media people creating great content; after all, it’ll make our jobs as Content Marketers far easier. However, there’s one tiny thing that’s really been bugging me of late: the omission of content strategy.

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Twitter is a great source for locating influential people and conversations relating to numerous industries and ideas. We’ve created a list of super helpful and informative Twitter Chats for those in the marketing industry – perfect for small business owners and marketers looking to brush up on their social media marketing skills.

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Believe it or not, while I took the week off of social media, the world kept spinning, my business survived, my face didn’t melt off, and no other catastrophes occurred as a direct result (as far as I know anyway). But I did gain some perspective I’d like to share while taking this bit of time off recently.

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Cyber Monday falls on December 2nd, and marks the busiest online shopping day of the year. With millions of shoppers armed with their credit cards and ready to buy, making sure you are ready in time to take advantage of the day, and indeed the whole festive shopping period, is critical.

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Ranking on image search requires both the optimization of images and page elements to promote the ranking of those images in search, as well as optimization of images and image sizes so they load faster and improve page speed. Here's how to do it.

When launching a new link building campaign or a new website, building strong relationships will lead to great links, better visibility, better social media engagement, mutually beneficial opportunities, and an overall better market presence.

Holiday shoppers will be more mobile than ever this year and Twitter data shows many of them will rely on Twitter for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Here's how retailers can make Twitter and mobile work to their advantage this holiday season.

Google has announced a better way to shop online with features that let you view product details with ease across devices - including an expansion of a feature that provides a 360-degree view of certain products on Google Shopping.

"Dear Socially Stephanie: I am a community manager for a music technology company. I have stood firm in my belief that engagement/engagement rates were the most important measurement to track. Now, I am having doubts. Is brand engagement still the best metric to use for social media reporting?"

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Social media countdowns are all the rage in college athletics. The trick is to find a new variation to engage your fans and make your season-building social media countdown. The University of Vermont women's basketball Twitter feed did just that using the Wayback Machine.

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This playful post postulates about what a Fake Larry Ellison might write about controlling the weather. "Congratulations to the Oracle Cloud Cover team. Today was a rainy mess. I suspect the reset of the conference is going to be a disaster if the rain keeps up."

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Discover how marketers can use social media to better leverage their brands during the holiday season. First, consolidate your message across different marketing channels. So now that you’re offering free shipping you want to get out the message, right? Makes sense. Put that info where it matters most.

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Two companies recently provided examples of how to create viral videos that speak directly to their target market. The videos are so well done, they’ve received coverage all major media channels generating millions of dollars of free publicity. Both companies created videos that identified problems, provided solutions, and had a “wow!” factor.

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Obviously, from a business perspective, promotion needs to be part of the strategy, but not the core element. It’s more important to listen to online conversation around your brand, contribute to it when necessary by adding value and making a difference to your target audience.

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Imagine that tomorrow, all of a sudden, Facebook is completely gone. Maybe someone wished upon a star, a competitor visited Vito Corleone on the day of his daughter’s wedding, or a group of scary hacktivists had enough of the privacy violations and somehow managed to permanently take Facebook offline.

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BrightLocal performed a survey on consumer behavior that observed buying decisions about local products and services. The survey focused on North America, with 90% of responding residing in the United States and the other 10 percent in Canada. Unsurprisingly, online reviews had a distinct impact on local businesses.

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Many of the questions from our audience revolved around topics such as: What’s the best way to collaborate with IT and why does marketing have to always bring the olive branch to IT? Is Big Data the perfect opportunity for Marketing and IT to finally collaborate?

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There are three things I think are imperative to anyone’s success: Eight hours of sleep, a commitment to a physical ideal, and unplugging. But there is no secret to success. It’s different for everyone…and it constantly evolves.

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You make all of these changes to your home during the holiday season, why wouldn’t you make similar ones to your Facebook page? Bring some holiday spirit, extra engagement and maybe even new customers to your business by making a few simple adjustments over the holidays.

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Hashtags are much more than a collection of letters and symbols. They can be powerful tools to reach new audiences, bring together like-minded individuals and create trending streams of conversation. Look at what #briskpic has done. Or #INBOUND13. Or #HeadlineHelp.

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There are dozens of B2B businesses, large and small, that are excelling at social media marketing. To be successful, each one has had to plan every campaign thoroughly. What would a win look like? Did they have the resources to create and run the best campaign possible, and to deal with a spike in site traffic or new business?

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One of the most important things to think about when you're quickly clicking through all the permissions screens that precede your membership to a social network is what information you want to keep private. (It's also a good idea to revisit your social media accounts from time to time to update your privacy settings.)

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Today's Google Doodle (or Whodle) commemorates the 50th anniversary of the hit BBC science fiction show "Doctor Who". The premise: the Doctor's mortal enemy, the evil Daleks have stolen the Google logo, and it's up to the Doctor, to Save The Day.

Since August, Bing has completely integrated shopping results directly into main the main experience. Now, as of yesterday, Bing has retired the notion of a "dedicated shopping" experience when you search for products.

"Place Pins" offers a new way for local businesses to market themselves on Pinterest. The interactive map allows pinners to pin places they want to visit someday. These pins include local establishments with addresses and phone numbers.

Screenshots of an updated Twitter website design were released in a TechCrunch article today. They show a lighter design that puts more emphasis on cover photos and the Twitter logo. The improvements are subtle, but most likely data-driven (perhaps to boost efficiency to please Twitter’s new public investor base).

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Some sales pipelines contain deals that are destined to never close - and yet the sales people responsible seem strangely unwilling to acknowledge the fact. Many of the deals were never alive in the first place - and many more are beyond any hope of resurrection.

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This Google Hangout on Air educates on the use of LinkedIn for Professionals. In the video, LinkedIn expert Greg Cooper, host Mark Vang (Sanctuary Networking Community) and I discuss how to use LinkedIn® as a B2B marketing platform, for networking, business development and your career.

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Guess what? The only person who truly cares about the quality of your content is you. If what you offer can solve a user’s problem and/or entertain the appropriate audience, that’s what makes it quality content, not a perfectly written Shakespearean masterpiece.

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Google has linked YouTube comments to its Google+ network, in order to ensure that “YouTube comments will become conversations that matter to you,” rather than conversations that you wouldn’t like to read. But the change has caused an uproar among YouTube users who don't take kindly to the forced integration.

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This week it emerged that David Cameron's Twitter account had followed an escort agency. Whilst most will regard the news as a minor embarassment and nothing much to get upset about, this kind of gaffe provides fuel for a media feeding frenzy and can be damaging. There is a stark lesson to be learned here for all businesses active on Twitter.

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The Google Analytics mobile reports will help you understand which devices people are using to view your website, let you compare conversions completed across devices, and view important data such as operating systems and screen resolution.

It's time to change how you think about planning paid search campaigns. The best paid search managers will understand (and can explain to others) the core concepts of how to target people above and beyond keyword groups by targeting audiences.

Dove Beauty Sketches, created by agency Ogilvy Mather for the Unilever personal care brand, tops the 2013 Top 20 Global Social Video Ads Chart – an annual ranking of the year's most socially-shared video ads – which was released today by Unruly.

Want to see your content devoured, receive positive feedback, and know your customers are going to tell their friends? In the 3rd edition of #CMMinds, we'll look at content like a meal. I’ll give you some of the ingredients to use when the goal is to compel people to eat it up.

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The good news is that employee engagement is creeping back to more palatable levels after dipping dramatically during the depths of the recession. According to Quantum’s engagement survey, 67.7% of employees ranked as engaged in 2012. Quantum divided and analyzed these respondents within four categories: engaged, contributing, disengaged and hostile.

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Now that consumers can make online purchases anytime, and in any place that has a mobile signal or wifi, the most successful companies are optimizing their mobile platforms to meet their customers’ needs. Only a few years ago, retailers were beginning to think email marketing was a dying approach, but the recent boom in M-commerce is proving quite the opposite.

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No editor wants to read through mountains of paragraphs to get at whatever product or news you're trying to promote. The KISS Principle really applies here in terms of writing; keep your pitch to the bare essentials with no more than 150 words.

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Call­ing all mar­keters! The New Year is almost here, and whether you are an in-house mar­ket­ing depart­ment of one, or part of a small army of mar­ket­ing mavens, what is your strat­egy to help stay updated and edu­cated on the lat­est and great­est indus­try prod­ucts, tools and inno­va­tions in 2014?

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Improve your online FAQ’s (frequently asked questions) to reduce the number of calls. Making them easier to search and more comprehensive helps your customers find the right answers quickly. Encourage your customer service representatives to keep a list of questions so that you can update them on a regular basis.

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Without plug-ins, a blog is a simple vanilla cupcake. No frosting. No sprinkles. No glorious fudge center that makes your taste buds explode in joy. Your nice looking theme makes a pretty paper wrapper, but that’s it. It’s like content cake sitting alone, in desperate need of TLC to make it delicious and irresistible. Readers won’t love it and clients won’t love it.

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Cartoons are powerful because they provide a shortcut to a smile. That's why businesses and publications have been using them successfully in advertising for decades. Stock photos do add impact, but it is the sharing of a smile that make cartoons an especially powerful tool.

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Marketers plan to increase their spend on social media marketing in 2014. How can so many marketers place so much importance on social media marketing yet so few consumers derive any value from it nor find it relevant, accurate or memorable? Could it be that marketers still don't get it when it comes to how do social media marketing?

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More and more brands are working with bloggers to help tell the brand’s story. Blogger have large, highly engaged audiences and are interested in working brands that reflect their interests as well as their audience’s interests. Bloggers can create high-quality content for your brand.

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The single most important social aspect of your event is going to be the hashtag. The hashtag is a key element to your social exposure. Not only does it have to be sticky, but it also has to be constant. The reason your hashtag needs to be constant is so you can keep the conversation going year after year or month after month.

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According to new report, B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends—North America, published by MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute, 73% of B2B marketers are creating more content than they did last year and 58% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budgets over the next year.

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A strong branded content development program is at the core of social media community marketing. Use existing examples of success to gain buy-in from your marketing executives to start developing branded content on a regular basis and drive members of your target audience to your brand from social media communities.

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B2B marketing is still largely driven by the tried and tested methods like trade shows and events. This is not going away anytime soon. However, by implementing an integrated social media strategy, it is possible to increase the exposure to your brand and thus see higher conversions.

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"The way I think of it is you can either have a unique meta tag description, or you can choose to have no meta tag description, but I wouldn't have duplicate meta tag descriptions," according to Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts.

The digital video market has entered its adolescence. But even though it’s bigger and stronger, it’s still in its awkward teens. It must grow up as an industry and prove that digital video is just as safe and transparent as its television parent.

Data coming from social analytics company Piqora said a single pin pays dividends to brands over time - up to several months after it was originally pinned - with the average pin being worth 78 cents in sales for all types of publishers.

All of a sudden media is cool again, or at least some media. While traditional publishers continue to struggle with declining revenue, money is flowing into new media companies. This is translating into career opportunities for some accomplished journalists whose brands now arguably transcend the publications they work for.

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The technology takeover is here. As a small business owner, you know you can’t fight it anymore. But where do you even start? From building your own website to setting up social media profiles, joining directories, advertising, and more, your digital checklist is more than a little overwhelming.

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