SEO Content Marketing Roundup, Week Ending April 13th, 2011

With social media flexing its ever-growing muscle in all things marketing, this week’s latest and greatest web writing news is concerned with the online “face” of business, from cohesive social media policy and strategy to sound (brand and industry) reputation management.  Content and social media marketers, as well as SEO and search folks, seem more than a bit self-conscious about presenting their  best face and a consistent voice, as consumers become ever more savvy and influential.  Take a good, long look at this week’s handsome selections…

Content Marketing:

So how do you find the “right” type of content for your business?  Content Marketing discusses this via a “demand spectrum,” as well as how to use its valuable content checklist for different content types.

And speaking of CMI, the second (April/May 2011) issue of its Chief Content Officer (CCO) Magazine is now available.

Brian Clark discusses the two essential elements of irresistible content at Copyblogger, and shares just “how the hell you can constantly create compelling content” via Internet Marketing for Smart People with Robert Bruce.

Good read at Mashable about how to spread your brand’s footprint around the web, as well as nine digital marketing lessons from top social brands.

Level 343 discusses company blogging do’s and don’ts, while Problogger (Darren Rowse) addresses the issue of determining what you want your blog to be known for.

Conversions is the subject of two notable posts, one at The Next Web (TNW) addressing how to optimize your conversion rate (without bothering your tech team), and the second by Chris Garrett at Copyblogger, relating how a “team” approach to advice killed his site’s conversion rate.

Nine steps to continuous content marketing improvement is at Content Marketing Institute.

Interesting post by Vivek Wadhwa on the new information age, with all its implications, is at TechCrunch, while Cheryl Burgess pens “innovation gone wild on Madison Avenue” at Blue Focus Marketing.

SEO & Search:

Search Engine Land posts three white-hat ideas for optimizing Google’s “suggest” results, and Lee Odden shares three essential SEO tips for advertisers via Top Rank.

Meanwhile, Business Insider discloses an internal Google memo to employees, indicating that their 2011 bonuses will depend on “Google sucking less at social.”

Computer World features a related article on new Google CEO Larry Page’s “first blunder” (re: social networking).

And speaking of the big G, Brand Dignity (Brandignity) dissects Google’s “official” SEO tips, while Google Guide features an unofficial, interactive Google tutorial.

SEOmoz posts an intriguing “feature preview” of the SERP analysis report, while Six Revisions posts looking beyond Google page rank with alternative SEO metrics.

SEO by the Sea discusses Google’s newest patent, “query breadth,” which may alter the relative weight given popularity- versus relevance-based ranking signals.

Target Marketing Magazine features an article explaining 10 ways to fix your SEO ranking in the aftermath of Google’s Farmer/Panda update (from a SES New York session.)

In the meantime, Search Engine Roundtable reports that Google is responding to reconsideration requests with “no manual penalty” notifications (meaning, it’s fixable).

Mashable posts how to optimize your content for social discovery, ReveNews posts “how to get social with SEO (because you have to)” and Top Rank posts improving B2B marketing by integrating both SEO and social media marketing.

Social Media Marketing:

HubSpot highlights key findings from the SME industry report, showing that social media is important to 90-percent of marketers.

Mashable reports that StumbleUpon has hit 1 billion stumbles per month, and posts an infographic showing the demographics driving “the winners and losers” of different social networking platforms.

Jay Baer addresses the “dangerous realities” of social media for business at Convince and Convert.

More research on Facebook (engagement practices) is available at Community Organizer 2.0, and HubSpot posts how to encourage engagement on your Facebook pages.

Brian Solis provides an interesting take on increasing social influence by not thinking about the (Klout) score, and SEOmoz posts how to track your social media strategy using third-party tools and APIs.

Marketing Sherpa features a survey-based article on using social media as a list growth tactic, and Social Media Examiner looks at nine companies doing social media “right” (and why).

Google announced its merger of Hotpot with Places; Search Engine Journal discusses this newest Google initiative, including the (Larry Page) timing.

Mack Collier posts 10 considerations for businesses when creating a social media policy, and Mark Schaefer of {grow} posts an entertaining “classic take on social media.”

And finally, Mashable posts how paywalls are changing the social media strategies of news organizations.