Top Stocks 2014, Best Stock Market 2014, Hot Stocks Investing: 12/22/13

Online Marketing News: Twitter Engagement Explodes, Yahoo Falls Behind Facebook, Mobile Drives Paid Search Clicks

How To Increase Twitter Engagement By 324% � This infographic from Quicksprout has an absolute wealth of statistics and tips on how to generate a better ROI on Twitter � implement some of these suggestions into your strategy and watch those engagement rates climb. MediaBistro

62% Of Marketers Say Local Search Is Getting Harder � Read the opinions of hundreds of search agencies, consultants and business owners who logged in during a recent InsideLocal webinar. Search Engine Land

14 Stats to Inform Your 2014 Social Marketing Strategy � While no single industry statistic should stand alone in informing future plans and strategies, a broader snapshot of social network trends, social consumer behaviors and brand social media results can help reveal the big picture of social as we head into 2014. Social Media Today

33% of Paid-Search Clicks Coming From Mobile Devices � Mobile devices drove consumers to spend more time online while on the go. Paid search marketers worldwide allocated 34.4% to mobile devices in 2013, with phones capturing 17.7% and tablets receiving 16.7% — up from 20.5% in 2012. More than one in three global paid-search clicks originated from mobile devices during the 2013 early shopping season. The biggest driver was from tablets, where clicks rose from 8.7% of total clicks in 2012 to 16.3% in 2013. MediaPost

Report: Digital Ad Spending to Approach $10 Billion This Year � Based on the preceding news item, this comes as no surprise, but the figures are huge. Ad spending across all devices will grow 15.7% to $42.6 billion. In 2014, eMarketer projects total spending on desktop ads will increase by just 0.4%, while mobile ad spending will grow another 56% to nearly $15 billion. � BtoB

12 (of the) Best Content Marketing Infographics of 2013 � Discover the best practices for creating effective infographics and helpful infographic design tools and resources. Webbiquity

Six Pinterest Tools for Your Blog � Check out these six Pinterest tools to make the most of your site�s visual content. SpinSucks

B-to-B Digital Ad Revenue Up 25% in First Half � According to American Business Media’s most recent Business Information Network (BIN) Report, total B2B media and information company revenue increased 4.4% in the first half of the year to reach $13.11 billion, led by a 24.8% increase in digital advertising revenue. B2B

Twitter Pushes Promoted Account Ads Into Timelines, Rolls Out Conversion Tracking Tool � As Twitter closes its most important year to date, the company is rapidly adding features in a concerted effort to boost revenues and compete with Facebook and Google for advertising dollars. Promoted accounts, one of Twitter�s few ad products currently available, are now coming to the timeline via the company�s iOS and Android apps. ClickZ

Yahoo Slips Behind Google, Facebook and Microsoft In Online Ad Share � According to eMarketer, Yahoo!, long the country�s second-largest ad seller, will cede share of net U.S. digital ad revenues to Facebook and Microsoft. AdAge

Only 12% of Businesses Take an Integrated Approach to All Marketing Activities � The inability to integrate marketing campaigns is at least partly due to the failure to utilize relevant technologies. Less than a fifth of respondents (19%) said that they are currently using multichannel campaign management technology, though more than half (55%) are planning to begin using it in the next 18 months. eConsultancy

5 Biggest Social Media Lessons of 2013 � We still have a ways to go in understanding and applying social media to the business world, but there was no shortage of lessons to glean from 2013. Mashable

Hit By Panda and Confused About Low-Quality Content? � Getting hit by Google Panda can be confusing for many webmasters. But one important Google Analytics report can help Panda victims get on the right track and quickly. This post includes detailed instructions for creating and exporting the report. Search Engine Watch

Facebook Page Insights Now Include Real-Time Data � Facebook introduced two updates to its page insights aimed at giving page administrators a much clearer picture of both the present and the past. MediaBistro/All Facebook

The Shape of Things to Come: Google in 2014 � How will Google evolve after the acquisition of Wavii, Behav.io, PostRank, Grapple, and machine learning and neural computing technologies? Gianluca Fiorelli paints a picture of Google in 2014, based on entity search, semantic, and �ber-personalization, covering how Google’s recent acquisitions will interact with one another in order to shape our search experience. Read this informative and definitive post. Moz

Twitter Alerts Gains New Features, Rolls Out to Additional Countries � Twitter�s Alert feature is becoming much more robust. Launched back in September, the goal of Twitter Alerts is to provide pertinent information in times of crisis. MarketingLand

Top 20 YouTube & Video Marketing Stories the Year � YouTube dominated the video marketing headlines again this year, but Vine and Facebook made waves, as well. These were the 20 biggest stories in 2013. ClickZ

Visual Search May Offer Deeper mCommerce Engagement � Recent advancements in the area of visual search are setting the stage for a major shift in how people interact with the world around them and how those selling can better interact with those buying. Visual search technology is entering real viability at a critical time for an industry undergoing a tremendous amount of upheaval. Mobile Commerce Daily

Real-Time Marketing: The Agility to Leverage ‘Now’ � [SlideShare] Digital channels are ‘on’ 24/7, a fact that’s as true for brands as it is for traditional media. Organizations struggle to keep up, not to mention remain relevant. All marketing organizations must now consider to what degree they will function in real time. New research from Industry Analyst Rebecca Lieb defines real time marketing (RTM), identifies the six RTM business scenarios, addresses the benefits, challenges on how to execute and best practices of RTM. She outlines how companies can move into real-time readiness. Rebecca Lieb, Altimeter

Report: Email Volume Rises 13% in Q3 � A study by Experian� revealed a rise in open rates when a brand’s name was included in the subject line of transactional emails, such as shipping and order confirmations, order cancellations and return confirmations. What are you doing to make your email stand out? BtoB

From the Online Marketing Community

On Why a Transition From Optimizing for Search Engines to Optimizing for Customers is Essential David Black said, Thankfully the days of posts with illiterate titles based solely on the top results from a quick Google keywords search may soon be over.
It’s always possible to write articles or build web pages that customers want to see whilst using simple SEO techniques to help people find them. Really good content will get pushed around with social media and result in good SERPS.

Derek Miller said, Really good article Lee and a lot of valid points. If companies do not make the change to focus on customers they will be left behind their competitors that do. Thanks for sharing.

Eva said, Great Insight. I think one of the problems firms face is they are too focused in what they do rather than what customers need. The regular meetings revolve around what happened rather than “how can we help you achieve your strategic objectives?”. Add to that marketing being separate to the account manager people and you end up with SEO stuffed content in danger of falling into the “no one cares” about category. I believe research is critical is answering this debate, yet many companies are reluctant to ask their customers the critical questions. I would love to know if others have experience this.

What’s Your Take?

Will 2014 be the year more businesses take an integrated approach to marketing? Will you be optimizing for the customer journey?

Wishing you all a very happy New Year! Thanks for reading.

Where Search Optimization Fits in The Future of Digital Marketing

Clever lighting at Google

As long as useful answers can be found on search engines, optimizing content for search discovery will remain a key to online success.

The degree to which marketers must align creative, technical and customer centric resources for content may vary, but optimized content is vital for reaching and engaging customers that are actively looking for solutions.

Buyers are continuously seeking answers from the web, whether it�s via PC, mobile, or tablet, at every stage in the buying cycle. So it�s important that brands ask themselves: Are your digital assets and media properly optimized to capture these visitors at every phase�from discovery to purchase?

Of course, the days of optimizing a web site as a single source of interaction with customers are long gone. Buyers are becoming far more sophisticated in how they access information, often consuming media of different formats on multiple devices at the same time.

While a company may do well with web pages on Google search from a lap top computer, their competitors might be dominating with images on mobile search and using video within relevant social networks.

If your business isn’t “the best answer” where and when customers need you, then the competition will be.

Integrated digital marketing across earned, owned, paid and shared media is the answer, but can be complicated for marketers that are structured for single channel efforts. As a starting point (and a solid reminder for pros) here are three simple tips on how to use search optimization as part of a more sophisticated digital marketing program.

1. Know Your Customer

How well do you know your customers? What characterizes your best customers? Your worst customers? Have you quantified and qualified these observations?

One way to anticipate the demand for topics that can drive your content creation and performance optimization is to research keywords with tools like Ubersuggest and Google AdWords Keyword Planner (AdWords account required).

Use that research to create a keyword glossaryand then map topics that are most relevant and in demand to the corresponding categories and pages on your website, blog and other web content. While Google has masked organic keyword referrers from web analytics, this mapping tactic will help you connect traffic performance to the topics and keywords that you’ve been optimizing for. Knowing what your buyer wants is the first step to delivering and then optimizing valuable content that will prove meaningful to new and returning customers alike.

Use what you already know about your best customers to create, promote and optimize content that helps them answer key questions during all phases of the buying cycle. Don’t just focus on transactions. Once you have engagement with that content, you can use social media monitoring and web analytics data to further refine messaging, creative and calls to action.

The future of optimization with digital marketing is a never ending effort to improve the ability for search engines and buyers to find understand and act on your content.

2. Align Sales with Search

Businesses should analyze KPIs (key performance indicators) that lead consumers to conversion. What pages are driving conversion? What pages serve as stepping stones to conversion? Take inventory of these pages and ensure that they are optimized for discovery, engagement and action appropriately.

For each customer segment, there may be a unique sequence of steps along the buying journey from awareness to interest to consideration and purchase. With each step there are different questions to be answered and different calls to action. Make sure you anticipate what KPIs make the most sense at each stage and that they align with the business outcome you desire.

Trying to instigate transactions on a page that is optimized for customers that are just learning about your category of solution for the first time is a disconnect. Optimizing a page with a case study, pricing or competitive comparison is a better match for inspiring educated buyers to transact.

Align appropriate sales messaging with optimized content across the buying cycle and you’ll deliver a better customer experience that will lead to more sales whether the pages are discovered from search or links from other sources like social media, industry publications or the company blog.

3. Track Performance & Facilitate Change

Once you�ve implemented an SEO strategy into your digital marketing mix, the job of optimization for search is far from finished. Track the organic search visibility of your optimized content and digital assets to see if there are correlations between keyword ranking and the performance of pages that have been optimized for specific phrases.

Moving forward, tailor your content and topic optimization strategy to reflect buyer preferences, and refine messaging on destination content like landing pages as well as feeder content like blog posts, earned media and social networks based on performance indicators. The process of optimization is continuous.

The future of optimization within a digital marketing strategy means creating a search strategy that encompasses all devices, channels and media that customers are using. Modern business buyers and consumer shoppers are discovering and interacting with content on multiple channels. What does that mean for marketers? The days of single channel are dead. The days of multichannel are maturing and the world of omnichannel is where marketers need to gain proficiency in order to truly deliver on “the best answer” experience for buyers.

According to Google Think Insights, �90% of people use multiple screens sequentially.� Today, and in the coming year, your search optimization strategy must span all channels, reach your customers on all screens and be integrated with your overall online marketing strategy. Know your customer and revisit the data that supports your hypothesis about what drives each of your most important customer segments. �Optimize across the sales cycle, not just for transactions and make sure you’ve committed to optimizing for content performance in search on an ongoing basis.

Have you tackled these three basic steps? Are your SEO efforts still focused on keywords and rankings or are you optimizing for customer experiences?

This post was adapted from an edited interview I did with LivePerson for their eBook: The Future of Digital Engagement: 10 Thought Leaders Share Predictions for 2014

Happy Holidays from @TopRank Online Marketing

Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones from TopRank Online Marketing!

It’s been an incredible year for us with new faces, new clients, improved services mix and the continued growth of our digital marketing consulting practice.

This year we’ve added some amazing talent to the TopRank team and I am very thankful for their contributions! Ours is a very dynamic industry and mutual client and company success calls for our team members to be adaptable, passionate about the work and solution oriented.

I am happy to report that they’ve answered the call impressively. We’ve taken on 20 new clients, renewed more client engagements than ever and have grown numerous programs to include an integrated mix of content, social media, SEO and online PR.

Here’s a huge THANKS to the smart, creative and results-focused future leaders that have joined the TopRank Online Marketing team in 2013:

Ben Brausen – Social Media MarketingBrooke McDonald – Account ManagementEliza Steely – Account ManagementEmily Bacheller – Social Media MarketingJesse Pickrain – Content MarketingMichael Bak – Account Management & Paid Search MarketingNick Ehrenberg – Account Management, Content MarketingSteven Zahurones – Account Management, SEO

And we’re still hiring!

During the Holidays it’s important to reflect on what’s important and there’s a lot to be thankful for with our team and customer community. As part of that reflection, I�regret the loss of our team member,�Brian Larson�and also marvel at the ability of senior consultant and director, Jolina Pettice, to hit the ground sprinting at full speed while taking on his client accounts.

We place a high value on ongoing learning at TopRank and I am proud to share that both Alexis Hall and Nick Ehrenberg earned their Master’s degrees this year. Congratulations!

Multiple team members have continued their quest for knowledge through various Google certifications (Analytics & Paid Search) as well as attending local and industry conferences. Account Manager Evan Prokop has embarked on a new Digital Marketing role that will impact his own areas of expertise as well as the rest of our team. We’ll continue that trend into 2014 so you’ll see more TopRank team faces at events, getting certified, continuously learning and optimizing performance.

I’d also like to extend gratitude, appreciation and best of luck to our amazingly talented Amie Krone who helps keeps the TopRank ship running in more ways than one. I wish the best of luck with the birth of her new baby and hope she can relax as much as possible during her maternity leave.

The heartbeat of TopRank is of course, Susan Misukanis, who mentors our consultants, works with new client opportunities and has the uncanny ability to bring clarity out of chaos. We are all forever thankful and grateful for her leadership and contributions (and sense of humor) that drive the success of our team, clients and overall agency.

There’s a lot to look forward to in the coming year and this one blog post simply isn’t enough to share the depth of my gratitude to our team, our clients and to our community. Thank you!

Twitter 2013 Year in Review: Notable Features, News & Research

Ah, how time flies … especially in the Twittersphere – where 140 characters rule and 6 seconds of video say it all.

It seems like just yesterday we were oogling over Twitter Vine, and now, Twitter's all grown up, staking its claim as a publicly traded company.

It would be bold to say we could recap everything that happened with Twitter this year, but we did compile some of the highlights. Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

Notable Twitter News in 2013

The big news for Twitter this year was, of course, filing for an IPO in September. The initial IPO filing shed light on the financial situationof the social giant for the first time, uncovering Twitter's approximate $419 million deficit.

More recently, the news on Twitter was its participation with other tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft in the Reform Government Surveillance group, an effort to "address the practices and laws regulating government surveillance of individuals and access to their information."

Other Twitter news in May of this year hit when Yahoo announced it would "seamlessly include relevant and personalized Tweets alongside stories from Yahoo! and our other sources" right in the search results.

And let's not forget about the Vatican embracing Twitter, as Pope Francis (@pontifex) took the reigns as the new head of the Catholic Church earlier this year.

Notable Twitter Features in 2013

Twitter kicked off its year of feature releases with Twitter Vine, launched in January, and people and brands all over the world shared the moments of their lives in six seconds or less.

In April, Twitter allowed for keyword targeting for promoted tweets. In May Twitter unveiled a new way for limited users to leverage the social platform for lead gen with "Lead Generation Cards" – a way to collect information and offer resources without users ever having to leave Twitter.

A few months later, itreleased the feature to all. And in November, Webtrends shared a case study that showed Lead Generation Cards yielded an improved cost per lead by 500 percent.

In early summer, Twitter began testing "related headlines," which it officially released in August; related headlines curates articles from select publishers under a tweet that shares something newsworthy.

Another launch this year was Twitter's television advertising suite, which allowed marketers to "engage directly with people on Twitter who have been exposed to their ads on TV," Twitter said in its announcement.

Then in November, it launched "conversation targeting" as part of that suite, which allowed advertisers to reach TV viewers engaging in conversation about a particular show, whether or not they originally advertised on television.

And this month, Twitter announced that its ad retargeting service was officially open for business, after much speculation in the summer about its arrival, and a soft launch in July.

As Twitter worked towards enhancing its experience for users, additional notable releases this year included:

Custom timelines.The ability to schedule tweets a year in advance.New search results with more mixed media.

2013 Twitter Research

Research from this year shed light on Twitter user behavior in general, with some data showing users definitely do have expectations for brands and their engagement level on Twitter.

More than 70 percent of users said they expect to hear back from the brand they're interacting with on Twitter, according to data by Lithium Technologies. The majority (53 percent) wants that response within the hour.

Another study by TrackMaven highlighted what days of the week and time of day Twitter users were pumping out tweets, and when retweets were most likely to happen. Research showed the most active days were Monday through Friday, but Sunday seemed to be the most promising for retweets.

And if you're curious, we found out in September that Topsy has every tweet, ever – 425 billion to be exac – in case you have some time on your hands and want to search its database.

Looking Back on 2013 Through the Eyes of Twitter

If nothing else, Twitter is a place for people to share the days of their lives, and the events happening all around them. Recently, Twitter released an interactive year-in-review widget that explores the stories that mattered to people in 2013.

Highlighting the fascination that Twitter users have with the entertainment industry's stars and their lives, the most popular tweet of 2013 was actress Lea Michelle's first outreach on Twitter about her boyfriend's untimely death this year.

See what's on the Agenda!
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Search Engine Land’s Most-Shared Stories on Facebook for 2013: How To Survive Google, Plus A Joke Here & There

Search marketing friends — welcome, welcome! It’s time for another installment of our�Search Engine Land Year In Review series. We’ve toured through the�top news stories�and those that were most tweeted�–�now it’s time to scope out the articles, tutorials, resources, and surveys that were most shared on the world’s largest social network, Facebook.

Much of our “most popular on FB” posts you’ve already seen on the top tweeted list, but the order in which these stories rank is something of note. And for sure a few more playful posts made it into this roundup (April Fools, Easter Eggs), suggesting that tweet-streams are more of a place for hard-hitting news, whereas Facebook users might be more inclined to share light and pleasantly distracting posts with likeminded friends.

For all of our�most socially-shared stories of 2013, we used�Social Crawlytics, a free tool that analyzes each URL of a site to show how it�s been shared across top social sites. It’s a super useful�tool�to capture social plugin data and illuminate how �content resonates socially.

Alright, enough analysis – let’s get to the goods. Here you have them, the top 20 Search Engine Land stories shared on Facebook in 2013:

FAQ: All About The New Google �Hummingbird� AlgorithmPenguin 4, With Penguin 2.0 Generation Spam-Fighting, Is Now LiveGoogle�s Impressive �Conversational Search� Goes Live On ChromeA Eulogy For AltaVista, The Google Of Its TimePenguin 5, With The Penguin 2.1 Spam-Filtering Algorithm, Is Now LivePost-PRISM, Google Confirms Quietly Moving To Make All Searches Secure, Except For Ad ClicksGoogle�s Matt Cutts On Upcoming Penguin, Panda & Link Networks UpdatesHow The New Facebook Search Is Different & Unique From Google SearchGoogle Panda Update Version #24; 1.2% Of Search Queries ImpactedGoogle�s April Fools� Day 2013 Joke-A-Thon: YouTube Shutdown, Google Nose & MoreGoogle�s Hummingbird Takes Flight: SEOs Give Insight On Google�s New AlgorithmGoogle Changes Ranking Advice, Says Build Quality Sites Not LinksThe Top Five SEO Mistakes According To Google�s Matt CuttsGoogle Confirms Panda Update Is Rolling Out: This One Is More �Finely Targeted�Google Warns Against Large-Scale Guest Posting, Advertorials & �Optimized Anchor Text� In Press ReleasesNow Updated: The Periodic Table Of SEO Success FactorsGoogle�s Matt Cutts: Black Hat & Link Spammers Less Likely To Show Up In Search Results After Summer50 Percent Of Companies Struggling With SEO Aren�t Integrating Social Media [Survey]Google Testing Huge Banner Ads For Branded QueriesThe Big List Of Google Easter Eggs

Happy holidays, dear readers!

How Link Building Changed in 2013

Every year, link building gets harder. We rename the process, we struggle to adapt to updates, we beg clients to let us stay as safe as possible, we argue about new factors that may outweigh it in Google's eyes, but still, we keep building links.

Clients keep requesting link building services, and I honestly don't see that much has changed this year in terms of how it all works. Sure, some poor quality tactics have come under fire and you can't get away with everything that worked in 2012, but will people stop building links? No way.

So what changed this year in terms of link building?

Google Updates: The Condensed Version

Panda refreshed a few times until it was announced that it would be rolled into Google's core algorithm, with monthly refreshes that would occur over a period of 10 days. In July many webmasters saw some Panda recoveries. There were Penguin recoveries during Panda updates as well.

Penguin updated in May and then in October, with both updates causing havoc with some sites, except the May update wasn't nearly as bad as the big one in October.

Hummingbird was quietly unleashed as a new core algorithm, with this supposedly meaning that now Google could better understand a query as a whole and not just on a partial level. It was apparently live for weeks before it was confirmed and did we notice? For the most part, nope.

A few non-animal-named (and sometimes unconfirmed) updates were released throughout the year.

A Phantom update in early May caused many sites to lose most of their traffic.A domain crowding update, also in May, sought to alleviate the problem of having multiple results from the same sites for a query.A payday loan update hit in June, attempting to curb spam in niches like loans and porn.

There were a few others, but in terms of ones that affected link building, we still mainly had to fear Penguin.

For a full listing of 2013 updates, Moz has a great list.

3 Major Link Building Topics in 2013

Three major topics were discussed all year long:

1. Disavowing Links

Should you disavow? Should you bother trying to clean up links or just disavow them? Would disavowing links hurt you? Would it draw attention to something and you'd be better off keeping quiet? Should you disavow links if you haven't been penalized or lost any traffic and rankings?

How to Use Google's Disavow Links Tool the Right WayGoogle Reveals New Details on Link Disavow ToolDisavowing Links? Google Says Use a Machete, Not a Scalpel2. Requesting Reconsideration

When should you do it? What should you do before doing it? Would it bring unwanted scrutiny on your site if you had something to hide and really didn't need to be doing it?

Google Reconsideration Request Guidelines & ExampleWhy Google Won't Respond to the 5,000 Reconsideration Requests They Get Every Week8 Reasons Your Reconsideration Request Will Fail3. Cleaning up Your Links

Was it worth the time and effort when you could potentially just disavow the links? Should you pay a webmaster to remove a link? Was someone harming your site by building bad links to it and if so, what should you do in terms of cleanup?

Removing Unnatural Links by Removing Pages on Your WebsiteLink Removal Request Tips for Webmasters & Business OwnersHow to Conduct a Link AuditMore Top Link Building Stories in 2013

Google started giving us more information in Webmaster Tools. Manually penalized? Now you could see a message to that effect! This was a giant step towards better communicating with webmasters who weren't always sure why they were not doing well.

But then Google moved the "submit a reconsideration request" functionality into Manual Actions in Webmaster Tools so that you could only do that if you had a manual action. Naturally that makes sense, as those requests only work for manual actions, but the problem was that you could submit one for any reason before (even if you weren't technically supposed to) but since it was accessible earlier, many webmasters were quite upset about having gone through the process of cleaning up their profiles and disavowing links in hopes of submitting one.

However, after this clarification they did still make sure we knew that disavowing bad links was a good idea, even if we hadn't been hit.

Despite alluding to the idea that we might not see another 2013 PageRank update, we have in fact just seen one. Despite all of us who say PageRank doesn't matter, there sure was a lot of chatter about this in social and in the blogosphere.

Link networks continued to be in the news with a couple being taken down just in recent weeks. Remember when I said not to rely on networks for your rankings? That advice still holds.

Finally, Google updates its definition of "link schemes." On the 2013 chopping block: press releases, advertorials, and guest posts.

Bing!

What about Bing? I turned to Duane Forrester, who manages Bing Webmaster Tools, for this one but in a nutshell, he backed up a lot of sentiment about letting links happen naturally for the best results.

"...the reality is, more now than ever, letting links build naturally is the way forward," he said. " We’ve seen years of people gaming the system, or trying to, at least. And while many think they’re getting ahead, the view from inside an engine is very different. We see what people do, the patterns they make and the trails left behind."

He also spoke to the idea of social becoming more important, and I'd definitely agree on that one. One thing that he said really stood out in my mind, as it's a problem we face constantly, and that is the fact that it's extremely difficult to get a webmaster's attention today. If you rely on email outreach to build links, you're probably going to have to work extra hard to make that happen in 2014.

"Social lets a business amplify the outreach through a network of self-directed fans," Forrester said. "And if you wow them with content, they’ll share far and wide for you, all in an effort to be the first of their peers to share something worthy."

Yandex

Yandex, the Russian search engine, announced plans to ignore links as a ranking factor for commercial queries, with a focus on human interactions with sites.

Will the others follow suit? And will this work? Time will tell but it's an interesting concept.

So far it looks like that change would only affect around 10 percent of their queries, so it leaves room for making further changes if it doesn't work out. Apparently they're considering this since they think that the quality signals from links are much lower than they were years ago. I'd have to agree with that.

So What Changed in the Industry, Really?People talked more about building relationships than building links. This whole concept has been around for ages but in 2013, it really started to get much more attention. Many link builders stopped calling themselves link builders and became outreach specialists, content creators, relationship managers, inbound marketers, or anything besides link builders. Did they stop doing things that had the end result of building links? Somehow I doubt it. People just talked more about how link building shouldn't be a goal but, in many cases, it of course still was a goal.Some webmasters became more afraid to link out. Tales of unfairly penalized sites were everywhere and many webmasters decided to either nofollow all outbound links or just not link at all.

From what I'm seeing, it's still the same game even if it's gotten harder. People are still building spammy links and they're still working in some cases. You can still move a site up in the rankings with just a few good links.

From the perspective of a link building agency, what I'm seeing is that clients still want links. They are still willing to buy them, they're still using networks, and they're still engaging in very risky tactics despite being warned about what can happen. You will still see blatantly paid links on big sites and not be able to pick paid links out on another one, because link builders can be very clever, as can webmasters.

Summary

I've always maintained that links remain incredibly important, and just as I say every year, I really don't see that going away any time soon. Even if Google decided to build a new algorithm that had nothing to do with links, the fact remains that links are how people move around on the web. They're how people find your site, and even if they no longer affect rankings, they'll still be a critical part of your online marketing strategy.

Thank you! Happy 10 Years of Blogging @TopRank Online Marketing Blog

Can you believe it? On this day in 2003 our first “hello world” blog post for TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog was published. �1,328,500 of my own words plus tens of thousands more from our team later, it’s amazing to think it has been 10 years already.

Wow, how time flies!

A HUGE THANK YOU goes out to you, our readers, who have engaged, shared and interacted with us over the years. Your feedback and interactions have inspired us with ideas that we’ve been able spread all over the world.

In fact, I’ll be sharing the top 10 lessons I’ve learned from 10 years of blogging as one of the opening keynote presenters at NMX BlogWorld the first week in January. �As I reflect on the awesome contributions from our team and our community to the success of �TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog, I’ll share a few of those lessons here.

Blogging has been good for our business. Many readers have become our clients, others have joined the TopRank team and many more have learned and shared the advice here amongst their own networks in the digital marketing, public relations, search, social and content marketing worlds. Blogging has also enabled coopetition amongst other digital agencies, many of which we’ve been able to partner with. �We’ve realized other benefits too:

Unsolicited media coverage from The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times and many othersSpeaking opportunities all over the world: New York, San Francisco, Moscow, Madrid, Sydney, Antwerp, London, Hong Kong, Auckland, Tonoto and even Coralville Iowa.Consulting with major brands: General Mills, HP, Dell, McKesson, Staples, LinkedIn, Marketo, Radian6, and many othersAttracting a major book publisher, Wiley, through which I published my first book: Optimize – How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content MarketingRecruiting top talent – smart, creative and focused on results!Partnering with amazing conferences as a media sponsor, content partner: Content Marketing World, Social Media Marketing World, NMX BlogWorld, ClickZ Live and othersSource of marketing experimentation with content themes, SEO tactics, and other ways to attract measurable results

The thing is, our blog isn’t a success just because of what we publish. It’s a success because of the the online to offline dynamic of networking and interacting with people in the industry. �We crowdsource ideas, content and leverage offline to online interactions for a cycle of interaction with priceless effects. Find smart people to interact with on relevant topics and then recognize them publicly when they contribute. This is how we’ve grown our social community to over 3o0,000.

The magic formula for community growth: Ask, Recognize. Repeat.

The proof is in the feedback. I can’t count how many times people have approached me at conferences and industry events to say they’ve been reading our blog for years and how it has helped them improve their marketing and even get jobs, promotions and inspire them to start their own consultancies. Not only is it satisfying to know our efforts to contribute have helped others, but it’s inspiring others to do the same. A rising tide lifts all ships.

Our business blogging philosophy: Give to get.

With the real-time, visual and mobile web exploding, blogging still holds an important place in the digital marketing mix – and always will for our team at TopRank. While we’re a boutique digital marketing agency, our blog has helped us achieve industry awareness, reputation and respect on par with a agency that is multiples our size. �We’ve been included in numerous lists as a top blog and are often considered a publisher on par with many industry publications. Becoming a go to resource for topics your community is interested in helps you become the center of attention when it matters most. It helps your customers bypass industry publications and connect with your brand directly as a trusted source of answers, resources and solutions.

If you want to ensure your brand gets in the media, then become the media yourself.

As a communications and marketing tool, the importance of blogging cannot be underestimated. Blogging has been an instrumental part of growing our business from a few marketers working with a handful of clients from home to a sweet office on Lake Minnetonka where we get to work with some of the biggest companies, best known B2B brands, and smartest client marketers on the web. �The best part is, as we share our knowledge, we also hypothesize, test and learn in a continuous cycle. Blogging facilitates that cycle of learning that we can share with our community.

A blog is only as interesting as the interest shown in others.

For 10 years, creating content has been the core of our communications strategy to attract, engage and inspire action from prospective customers, potential employees, industry media, influencers and bloggers. �Seeing the millions of dollars in ROI from our blogging efforts, I can’t imagine that strategy will change in the next 10 years. Creating content as information, specifically useful and personalized for a target audience and as an overall experience across channels will be even more important in 2014 and beyond. Content is more than blogging, but blogging help you create more and better content that can reach the audience you’re after.

Content isn’t king, it’s the kingdom

When it comes to creating impactful content with minimal resources, I believe we walk the talk like few other companies can. Then we pass that insight on to your, our clients and community nearly every day. �Competition for time and attention is only going to increase. At the same time, it’s essential that marketers become even more effective at being useful and info-taining when and where it matters to their target audience. Whether it’s a search, a social network, email, an industry publication or an event, companies need to be present and top of mind for buyers. Blogging is a fantastic platform for asking and answering the questions that buyers are asking and that Google is beginning to favor. Remember, content is the reason search began in the first place.

Marketing Strategy for 2014 and beyond: Be the best answer.

Thanks to our team of contributors and very small number of guest posts, we’ve published nearly 3,500 blog posts including hundreds of marketing conference liveblogs, industry trends, tips and how to’s, interviews, book reviews, software reviews, polls and our beloved lists. I hope you’ve found them useful and continue to visit and share our humble little blog as often as you can.

I’ll be sharing more insights and specific thank you’s to TopRank staff, contributors, influencers and our community during the rest of this week as our 10 years of blogging celebration continues.

Thank you for reading, using and sharing!

Thank you! Happy 10 Years of Blogging @TopRank Online Marketing Blog

Wow, how time flies!

The magic formula for community growth: Ask, Recognize. Repeat.

Our business blogging philosophy: Give to get.

If you want to ensure your brand gets in the media, then become the media yourself.

A blog is only as interesting as the interest shown in others.

Content isn’t king, it’s the kingdom

Marketing Strategy for 2014 and beyond: Be the best answer.

Thank you for reading, using and sharing!

Search Engine Land’s Top News Stories Of 2013: Hummingbirds, Penguins, Pandas & More

As we get ready to close the books on 2013, the editorial team that brings you daily news and features on Search Engine Land and Marketing Land is going to look back at the most popular content we published during these past 12 months.

Over the next week couple weeks, we’ll reveal our most popular columns (overall, and broken down by topic) and our most shared stories on the main social networks.

But we’ll begin today with a look back at the most popular news items of 2013.

Search Engine Land’s Most Popular News Stories Of 2013

This list includes news stories published through December 18th.

FAQ: All About The New Google “Hummingbird” Algorithm (September 26, by Danny Sullivan)Play The Frank Zamboni Google Doodle (January 16, by Barry Schwartz)Google’s Impressive “Conversational Search” Goes Live On Chrome (May 22, by Danny Sullivan)Google’s April Fools’ Day 2013 Joke-A-Thon: YouTube Shutdown, Google Nose & More (March 31, by Matt McGee)Penguin 5, With The Penguin 2.1 Spam-Filtering Algorithm, Is Now Live (October 4, by Danny Sullivan)Google Panda Update Version #24; 1.2% Of Search Queries Impacted (January 22, by Barry Schwartz)Penguin 4, With Penguin 2.0 Generation Spam-Fighting, Is Now Live (May 22, by Barry Schwartz)Google’s Hummingbird Takes Flight: SEOs Give Insight On Google’s New Algorithm (September 30, by Amy Gesenhues)Google’s Matt Cutts On Upcoming Penguin, Panda & Link Networks Updates (March 11, by Barry Schwartz)Post-PRISM, Google Confirms Quietly Moving To Make All Searches Secure, Except For Ad Clicks (September 23, by Danny Sullivan)

All ten stories are Google-related, a testament to the fact that Google dominates the attention of the search marketing industry with its 65-70 percent US market share (and even higher market share in other countries).

If you’re new to Search Engine Land, or if you missed the commotion over Google’s animal-based updates this year, see our article library to get caught up:

Google: HummingbirdGoogle: Penguin UpdateGoogle: Panda Update

The list above is limited to news that we published in 2013. As is the case with many websites that have been online as long as Search Engine Land, some of our “evergreen” content was also extremely popular during the year. Features like our What Is SEO? guide and The Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors were also among the most-viewed content this year, even though they predate this calendar year.

We’ve also compiled a similar list on our sister site, Marketing Land: Marketing Land�s Top News Stories Of 2013: New Devices, Hashtag Bowl, Google Reader & More.

On behalf of the Search Engine Land editorial team, thanks for reading us during 2013. Happy holidays to you and best wishes for 2014!

Google Still Working On Promoting Subject-Specific Authorities In Search Results

Remember the video Google’s Matt Cutts released in May, talking about the ten future Google SEO changes? One of those topics was about authority boost for authors and sites that are an authority on a topic? Well, Google is still working on that.

In TWiG, This Week in Google, episode 227, Google’s Matt Cutts said this is something his team is working on right now. In fact, it is not about demoting sites but rather promoting the “good guy.” Craig Moore transcribed the snippet, which takes place an hour and twenty minutes into the video. Matt said Google is working on promoting the content of authorities on topics, so if an expert writes on a topic on any site, Google will notice that and make sure the content ranks better than non-authorities.

Here is the transcription:

We have been working on a lot of different stuff. We are actually now doing work on how to promote good guys. So if you are an authority in a space, if you search for podcasts, you want to return something like Twit.tv. So we are trying to figure out who are the authorities in the individual little topic areas and then how do we make sure those sites show up, for medical, or shopping or travel or any one of thousands of other topics. That is to be done algorithmically not by humans … So page rank is sort of this global importance. The New York times is important so if they link to you then you must also be important. But you can start to drill down in individual topic areas and say okay if Jeff Jarvis (Prof of journalism) links to me he is an expert in journalism and so therefore I might be a little bit more relevant in the journalistic field. We’re trying to measure those kinds of topics. Because you know you really want to listen to the experts in each area if you can.

Google Denies A Major Update On December 17th

Yesterday, most of the Google search results tracking tools showed major changes in rankings within Google’s search results; but, during my analysis of webmaster communication within the discussion forums and social space, I saw very little discussion around changes in rankings at Google. Then, Google’s Matt Cutts implied there was no update on Twitter saying Google tries to minimize doing major updates right before the holidays.

Here is Matt Cutts tweet in response to being blamed for doing a major Penguin update yesterday:

@Bessian Actually, we try to minimize major updates right before the holidays.

� Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) December 18, 2013

The tracking tools disagree and show signs of major changes in the search results. I personally believe that something tripped up the tools, like user interface changes or something, but not ranking changes. Here are screen shots of the tools, including MozCast, SERPs.com, SERP Metrics and Algoroo, statistics for December 17th:

And from what I see in the webmaster discussion areas, very few are complaining about traffic or ranking shifts around December 17th.

Finally, Matt Cutts and Google has said time after time, they try not to do major updates during or before the holiday season.