This week’s Sunday Special edition of our online marketing news features the big Google psyche out! over its kibosh on (spammy backlink-driven) guest blogging, which fairly blew up the web with analyses and reactions.
In other news:
- Content ideation and strategy that supports long-term business objectives
- Yahoo rolls out its own secured search
- Facebook’s declining search reach and its new algo change
- Twitter introduces its card analytics
Many more web gems await you, so enjoy! And thanks for tuning in…
Killer Content
Are You Winning The Attention Auction? | AJ Kohn via Blind Five Year Old.
Planning: Turning Barriers into Opportunities | Doc Sheldon via The Meld.
How to build a great content marketing strategy | Wissam Dandan via Wamda.
How to Earn the Amplification of Influencers – Whiteboard Friday | Rand Fishkin via Moz.
How To Build An Online Business That Will Last | Lewis Ogden (via Chris Dyson) via Triple SEO.
The Content Strategy Outcast – Technical Documentation and How to Convince Customers to Use It | Angie Nikoleychuk via Angie’s Copywriting.
9 Tools to Help You Come Up With Content Ideas | Jayson DeMers via Search Engine Watch.
Content Shock: Worrisome Trend or Content Marketing Myth? | Shel Holtz (via Joe Pulizzi) via Content Marketing Institute.
Absurd’s the Word: The Triumph of Absurdity in Online Marketing | Dustin Verburg via The Meld.
Can You Double Your Clicks with the Jeopardy Effect? | Roger Dooley via Neuromarketing.
How Colors Affect Conversion Rate | Neil Patel via Quick Sprout.
Corporate blogging generates new visits & drives conversions [data] | Brafton Editorial via Brafton.
B2B Marketers to Up Spend on Content, Mobile in 2014 | via eMarketer.
The Case For Continually Updated Content – Revisited | Steve Morgan via The Meld.
Events:
- Direct Marketing News’ 2014 Marketing & Tech Partnership Summit | New York City: January 28th.
- Integrated Marketing Summit | San Diego, CA: January 30th and 31st.
- MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2014 | Las Vegas: February 17th thru the 20th
- Content Marketing World 2014 | Cleveland, OH: September 8th thru the 11th. Early Bird Savings of $300 available thru February 28th!
- 2014 Content Strategy Conferences | Monthly schedule shared by Shelly Bowen via Pybop.
Savvy SEO & Search
Let’s first get this whole guest blogging blues out of the way, shall we?
It began with:
The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO | Matt Cutts via Gadgets, Google, and SEO.
Followed by:
Google Clarifies: Guest Blogging Is OK, But “Guest Blogging For SEO” Is Not | Danny Sullivan via Marketing Land.
Guest Blogging Is Not Dead (Shock – horror. Google announces Guest Blogging is Dead) | Barrie Moran via ISOOSI.
Keep Writing Quality Content: SEO Bloggers React To Matt Cutts’ Claim “Guest Blogging Is Dead” | Amy Gesenhues via Search Engine Land.
Toward a Linkless SEO: The SEO Link Is Dying. Here’s What Might Replace it | Elisa Gabbert via WordStream.
Link Building Will Never Die but Bad SEO May Kill Your Website | Michael Martinez via Reflective Dynamics.
[Updated] Guest Blogging, the Fork and My Take | Ann Smarty via SEO Smarty.
Will Link Building Soon Be A Thing Of The Past? | Casie Gilette via Search Engine Land.
Guest Blogging and SEO: Still a Match Made in Heaven | Neil Patel via Quick Sprout.
Spammy guest blogging is dead? Well duh. | Heather Lloyd-Martin via SEO Copywriting.
Matt Cutts declares the death of guest blogging for SEO | Graham Charlton via EConsultancy.
The Future of Guest Blogging (No, it’s Not Dead, Despite What Matt says) | Saleem Yaqub via PostJoint.
Don’t Stick a Fork in Guest Blogging Yet… | Jon Ball via Search Engine Watch.
Time for Guest Blogging With a Purpose | Jennita Lopez via Moz.
Matt Cutts Declares Guest Blogging “Done”… Are We All Screwed? | Jerod Morris via Copyblogger.
Guest Blogging is Not Dead | via Bill Hartzer.
SEOs and Content Marketers Rationalize Their Guest Blogging as Not Spam | Michael Martinez via SEO Theory.
In other SEO & Search News….
Google Now Changing The Top Search Filters Based On Query | Barry Schwartz via Search Engine Land.
Yahoo Search Goes Secure, Taking Referrer Data – An Indicator Of Yahoo’s Popularity – With It | Danny Sullivan via Search Engine Land.
Yahoo! Secured Search Rolls Out | Aaron Wall via SEO Book.
Google’s Matt Cutts: We Don’t Use Twitter Or Facebook Social Signals To Rank Pages | Barry Schwartz via Search Engine Land.
[DATA] Don’t Believe the Hype: Ten Blue Links Are Alive and Well in Search | Nathan Safran via Conductor.
Say No To Commercial Creep In Search Results | Kevin Ryan via Marketing Land.
SEO Penalty and Algorithm Recovery Timelines | Alan Bleiweiss via ISOOSI.
Dissecting Google Penguin 2.1: What Factors Mattered? [Study] | Jessica Lee via Search Engine Watch.
Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird : 3 major Google algo changes you REALLY need to address to win at SEO in 2014. | via Link-Assistant.
5 Ways to Unlock Organic Search Data from Google | Aura Dozescu via Search Engine People.
Google Hides Too Many Search Results | Alex Chitu via Google Operating System.
SEO: Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results | Duane Forrester via Bing.
The Great Google Authorship Kidnapping: What Happened to Your Author Photo in Search? | Mark Traphagen via the Stone Temple Blog.
Google Authorship Drop in SERPs: What Does it Mean? | Ann Smarty via Threadwatch.
Events:
- SES London 2014 | February 10th thru the 13th.
- SMX West 2014 | San Jose, CA: March 11th thru the 13th. Early Bird Rates available thru February 1st!
- ClickZ Live | New York, NY: March 31st thru April 3rd.
- TechCrunch’s 2014 Pitch-Offs | Starting in Atlanta, GA February 18th.
Smart Social
New Facebook Algorithm Update Dings Text Updates From Businesses | Ginny Soskey via HubSpot.
Make Facebook’s Algorithm Change Work For You, Not Against You | Chad Wittman via Moz.
Matt Cutts Explains How Important Social Media Signals Really Are | Matt Southern via Search Engine Journal.
Testing Ads in Mobile Apps | via Facebook for Business.
Introducing analytics for Twitter Cards | Buster Benseon via Twitter Developer blog.
Twitter Releases Card Analytics: Here’s How to Use ‘Em | Ginny Soskey via HubSpot.
Three Ways Google Plus Ripples Can Increase Your Visibility Online | Daniel Dannenberg via Vertical Measures.
Relationship Marketing: How to Build Meaningful Connections that Lead to Business | Michael Stelzner interviews Ted Rubin (podcast) via Social Media Examiner.
The Sunday Share: Analyzing the Culture of Selfies | via Danny Brown.
Events:
Social Media Marketing World | San Diego, CA: March 27th and 28th.
Photo credit to mslavick via Flickr Creative Commons