I am a huge fan of LinkedIn. I use it to connect with our clients as well as other thought leaders in the industry. One of my favorite aspects of the tool is the Answers section. Inquisitive by nature, over the past year I have asked and answered dozens of questions on topics related to web strategy and digital marketing. Traditionally when you ask a question you can anticipate answers from people with various levels of expertise and backgrounds which makes the information you learn more balanced. I am always pleasantly surprised at the quality and thoroughness of the answers people ...

According to a recent survey from Citibank, 42% of small businesses have made greater use of their company websites to generate business leads and sales during recent months. For many businesses that has meant rethinking their approach to the web. Many have chosen to explore how to leverage the full power of the web by building an intentional web strategy to reach specific goals. As a company who knew they could increase leads by focusing more on their web strategy, Trusted Supply Chain Partners analyzed the current state of their web efforts to identify opportunities for growth. Their ...

Yesterday Google revealed additional details about the capabilities of their new Social Search which is available in Google Labs. As I discussed in my previous article, last week both Bing and Google announced they would be including status updates from Twitter and Facebook into their new real-time search capabilities, which will have a dramatic impact on search engine optimization. According to Mashable: Social search, demoed at the Web 2.0 Summit by Google’s VP of Search Marissa Mayer, combines results from your friend’s blogs, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed, and a wide variety of ...

Social media and SEO have taken another step closer toward being inseparable. With last week's major announcements from both Google and Bing (Microsoft), search engine rankings will now depend more heavily on updates from Facebook and Twitter. Both Google and Bing plan to include Twitter status updates as a part of their real-time search capabilities in an effort to improve usability. "We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make ...

As a social tool a blog is a great way to build relationships with customers and prospects. It is a way for marketers to remove the mask and be transparent.  In addition to the social benefits blogging can also offer, there are also other marketing advantages. If you don't already have a company blog here are five great reasons to start one. According to Hubspot's Blog Study and Technorati's 2009 State of the Blogosphere Report blogs can offer organizations: 1. Amplified Website Traffic Websites with blogs have 55% more visitors than those who don't, fueled by 97% more inbound links, and ...

A new study from comScore and GroupM Search reveals further evidence that social media exposure and search behavoir are intrinsically connected. The study shows consumers who are using social media are far more engaged with brands than those who don't and are much more likely to proactively search for brands. Key findings from the study include: Consumers exposed to a brand’s influenced social media and paid search are 2.8x more likely to search for that brand. There was a 50% CTR increase in paid search when consumers were exposed to both influenced social media and paid ...

In addition to filling out your profile completely and keeping it up to date, there are several less commonly known things you can do to optimize your LinkedIn profile to further establish your credibility and get attention from the search engines. 1. Customize your links Instead of choosing the default option of  "My Website" or "My Blog", choose "Other" and type a short description (30 characters or less) and then provide the URL to your website or blog. This small change has big SEO benefits. The majority of links found on LinkedIn are "no follow" meaning they don't carry any weight ...

There is no room for second place when it comes to search engine optimization. With 62% of all users clicking on results found on the first page of a search engine result page (SERP) making sure you appear on the first page is critical in terms of boosting qualified traffic to your website. Let's take a look at some interesting data regarding click thru rates and SERP rankings: As you can see there is a huge decrease in CTR when you jump from the first to second ranking. There is also a large decrease in CTR in positions lower than fourth. This data confirms that users simply are ...