SEO content marketing roundup, week ending June 19th

Google is using balloons to bring the internet to the more remote regions of the world in its aptly named “Project Loon,” and SMX Advanced takes Seattle by storm in this week’s latest and greatest online marketing news.

Content marketers mark National Small Business Week in the U.S., and discuss conversions, B2B content strategy, blogging and blog monetization, sponsored content and content repurposing, as well as essential marketing stats and resources.

In the SEO and search sphere, SMX Advanced 2013 steals the headlines with unprecedented candor from Matt Cutts on what to expect from Google, as well as coverage of sessions about Authorship, legitimate link acquisition, structured data and markup, the need for mobile site speed, and much more.

The social media community devotes a lot of bandwith to discussing Facebook’s introduction of hashtags, and to Twitter opening its analytics to all users. Other highlights include the relaunch of Myspace, Google+ and Facebook marketing, and Google’s 52-percent take of global mobile ad dollars.

Enjoy this week’s picks!

Content Marketing

Discussing Google’s “Project Loon”, Steven Levy explains “How Google Will Use High-Flying Balloons to Deliver Internet to the Hinterlands” in an exclusive at Wired.

Closer to earth, Google acknowledges National Small Business Week in the U.S. (and 10 years of its AdWords) with “Happy Small Business Week” at its blog.

Brian Solis also commemorates National Small Business Week with “Small Businesses Survey: Resilience Prevails, Steve Jobs Recognized as Idol.”

Heidi Cohen posts “How To Get Your Small Business on the Map.”

Neil Patel shares “How I Built My First Business Through Email Marketing” at Quicksprout.

Maria Popova posts “Original Mad Man David Ogilvy on the 10 Qualities of Creative Leaders” at Brain Pickings.

Lee Odden shares the 11 “Top Content Marketing Posts of 2013” at TopRank.

Mitch Joel discusses “The New Face Of Content Marketing” at Six Pixels of Separation.

Andrew Isidoro discusses “Leveraging content relationships & social proof for conversion rate optimization” at SEO Copywriting.

George Ciotti discusses conversion rate optimization with “7 Marketing Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies” at KISSmetrics.

Heather Lloyd-Martin talks conversions with “Bad SEO content, good Google rankings: What now?” at SEO Copywriting.

Peter Lightbody posts a “4 Step System for Increasing Conversion and Sales” at Jeff Bullas’s blog.

Michael Weiss discusses “Why Skills are the Secret to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy” at Content Marketing Institute.

Sam Davies shares “Three steps to developing inbound marketing personas” at Econsultancy.

Danny Brown’s Sunday Share features NewsCred’s “50 Stats You Need to Know About Content Marketing” presentation.

Michele Linn shares no less than “34 Essential Research Reports for More Effective Content Marketing” at Content Marketing Institute.

Kari Rippetoe shares “10 Compelling Stats for Mobile Marketing” at Online Marketing Institute.

Amman Badlani reports on an SESNY 2013 panel, “The New Inbox: The Intersection of Email, Mobile & Social Marketing” at Search Engine Watch.

Adria Saracino posts “Is Data-Driven Marketing Compatible With Agile Marketing?” at ClickZ.

Erica Sendros posts “Free Advertising! How to Utilize Social Profile Images to Enhance B2B Content Strategy” at aimClear.

Courtney Ramirez discusses “B2B Blogging: Beyond the Hype” at Endurance Marketing.

Barry Feldman posts “Content Marketing vs. SEO: The Truth Behind A Ridiculous Debate” at Content Marketing Institute.

Rand Fishkin discusses “How Processing Fluency Impacts Web Marketing” (Whiteboard Friday) at The Moz Blog.

Kristi Hines posts “How to Make Money Online: The Ultimate Guide to Blog Monetization” at PostJoint.

Jeff Bullas posts “How to Achieve Fun, Fame and Fortune Blogging” at his blog.

Ana Hoffman shares “10+ Blog Link Roundups to Get Traffic From” at Traffic Generation Cafe’.

Melissa Fach posts “Giving Advice on Your Blog? How NOT to Sell Snake Oil” at CopyPressed.

Gabriella Sannino discusses sponsored blogging and transparency with “Are You Reading An Objective Opinion Or PR?” at her blog.

Matthew Gratt discusses “How to Promote Your Content Across Owned, Earned, and Paid Media” at Convince & Convert.

Mathew Ingram posts “The Washington Post’s new ‘sponsored views’ offering is actually pretty smart” at paidContent.

Danny Brown discusses “Why Google is Missing the Point on Sponsored Content.”

Dan Lyons shares “9 Insider Tips for Native Advertising That Actually Work” at HubSpot.

Eliza Kern discusses “Why Facebook isn’t the right company to create a Google Reader replacement” at GigaOm.

Seth Godin shares some online tools he likes with “A handful of tools.”

David Gould posts “Content Repurposing: Lower Marketing Costs and Expand Reach” at Vertical Measures.

Jay Acunzo discusses “How to Turn One Idea Into a Bottomless Backlog of Blog Posts” at HubSpot.

Events:

• The Neilsen Norman Group’s Usability Week 2013 conferences will be held in Washington, D.C. from July 15^th thru the 19th, New York City from August 25^th thru the 30^th, and Minneapolis from September 9^th thru the 13^th.
• GigaOM’s Structure conference on the future of cloud computing and internet infrastructure will be held June 19^th & 20^th in San Francisco.
• Content Marketing World 2013 returns to Cleveland, OH, September 9^th thru the 12^th.
• MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum 2013 will be held October 9^th thru the 11^th in Boston.

(John Hall lists a number of great conferences for online marketers, businesses, and entrepreneurs at Forbes).

 

SEO & Search

Barry Schwartz links out to the highlights of Google’s Matt Cutts’ unprecedented SMX Advanced 2013 disclosures in his one-hour “You&A” with Danny Sullivan in “Google’s Cutts Talks Structured Data Beta, Mobile Site Speed Need, Penalty Notices To Get Example Links & More” at Search Engine Land.

Kristi Kellogg posts “SMX Advanced 2013 Recap: 32 Takeaways” based on the live blog coverage by Dana Lookadoo and Virginia Nussey, at Bruce Clay, Inc.

Barry Schwartz provides a list of links to SMX Advanced live coverage with “SMX Advanced 2013 Live Blog Recap” at Search Engine Land.

Annie Cushing shares her SMX Advanced presentation, “Give Your Data an Extreme Makeover,” at Annielytics.

Janet Driscoll Miller posts “Live from SMX Advanced: Advanced Tips and Tricks for Actionable Analytics” at Search Marketing Sage.

Mark Traphagen shares his SMX Advanced presentation, “Google+ Profile PageRank: The Real AuthorRank?” at SlideShare.

Lindsay Schleisman summarizes the SMX Advanced open Q & A, “Ask The SEOs” with “#SEO Secret Sauce! Experts Share All at #SMX Advanced” at aimClear.

Barry Schwartz reports from Matt Cutts at the “Ask The SEOs” session at SMX Advanced: “Have The Same Ad-To-Organic Ratio As Google Search? Then You Might Be Safe From The Top Heavy Penalty” at Search Engine Land.

Peter Da Vanzo discusses “Why Webmasters Pass Their Margins Onto the Googleplex” at SEO Book.

Adam Stetzner posts “Google Doubletalk and the Three Bears” at Search Engine Watch.

Matt McGee reports the alternative search engine “DuckDuckGo Passes 3 Million Searches, Just 8 Days After Hitting 2 Million” at Search Engine Land.

Chris Silver Smith covers the SMX Advanced session, “From Microdata & Schema To Rich Snippets: Markup For The Advanced SEO” at Search Engine Land.

Andrew Isidoro discusses “Why you need to Schema now, not later” at Econsultancy.

Chris Simmance post “A Guide To Structured Data Markup Implementation Methods” at Koozai.

Citing Matt Cutt’s recent Webmaster video on what to expect in terms of SEO for Google, Tommy Landry posts “How to Prepare For Google’s Summer Algorithm Plans” at Search Engine Journal.

Also referencing Cutt’s video (above), Bill Slawski discusses the Agent (Author) Rank implications of “Google Patents on Author Signature Values and Authority Scores” at SEO by the Sea.

Janet Driscoll Miller discusses “Google Authorship Beyond Webpages” at Search Engine Land.

Dr. Pete Myers posts “SEO Tactics Die, But SEO Never Will” at The Moz Blog.

Marianne Sweeny posts “What’s in a Name: SEO Should Become IO” at SEMrush.

Heather Lloyd-Martin discusses “5 SEO writing myths that cost you money” at SEO Copywriting.

Chris Liversidge posts “Data Analysis for SEO: Industry KPIs For A Mature Industry” at Search Engine Land.

Nan Dawkins posts “Is Google’s Universal Analytics a Game Changer?” at Marketing Land.

Ian Lurie posts “Google Webmaster Tools Query Data is Worthless” at Portent.

Amy Gesenhues reports “RKG Launches SEO Forecasting Tool & Pilot Program Offering Insight On ‘Not Provided’ Query Data” at Search Engine Land.

Ann Smarty discusses “Google Spell Check and How it Works: Types of ‘Refined’ Results” at Internet Marketing Ninjas.

Ben Holland posts a video on “How to Get Out Of A Google Penalty” using a 6-step process and Google’s Disavow Links tool at Vertical Measures.

Cyrus Shepard discusses “How to Completely Ruin (or Save) Your Website with Redirects” at The Moz Blog.

Citing Matt Cutt’s latest Webmaster video on stock photos, Barry Schwartz reports “Google’s Matt Cutts: Stock Images Do Not Impact Search Engine Rankings” at Search Engine Land.

The editorial team at Brafton posts “Marketers are killing their SEO content with bad headlines.”

Brian Dean shares a brief post and infographic, “On-Page SEO: Anatomy of a Perfectly Optimized Page” at Backlinko.

Phil Nottingham discusses “How to Leverage Investment in Video to Build More Links” at The Moz Blog.

Amy Gesenhues reports “Google Officially Launches Knowledge Graph Carousel For Local Search” at Search Engine Land.

Nick Stamoulis posts “Small Businesses Can Still Have Big SEO Success” at Search Engine Journal.

Kiko Correa posts “Google AdWords – Third Party Sitelinks” at Portent.

Kerin Foster discusses “Why You Should ‘Bing It On’ In Your Online Marketing” at Search Engine Land.

Andrew Lolk posts “6 Reasons Why Small Businesses Often Fail With AdWords” at Search Engine Journal.

Chad Kearns posts the final of a six-part series, “Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Tracking Your Success” at Portent.

Sam Owen discusses “25 Ways PPC Has Changed In The Past Year” at PPC Hero.

Leena Rao posts “CrunchWeek: Path’s $1B Valuation, Google’s Waze Buy And The WWDC Recap” (video show) at TechCrunch.

Events:

• MozCon 2013 will be in Seattle (of course) from July 8^th thru the 10^th.
• ReelSEO’s Video Marketing Summit 2013 will be held along with Liveclicker’s Video Commerce Summit 2013 for a two-in-one offering July 25^th and 26^th in San Francisco.
• Search Exchange 2013 will be held July 29^th thru the 31^st in Charlotte, NC.
• TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013 will be held September 7^th thru the 11^th (in San Francisco).  “Extra” Early Bird pricing available through July 15^th.
• SES San Francisco is set for September 10^th thru the 13^th. Big savings with Pre-Agenda rates thru July 11^th! Early Bird rates kick in July 12^th thru August 15^th.
• SMX East 2013 returns to New York City, October 1^st thru the 3^rd.  Save with Super Early Bird rates thru July 27^th!

 

Social Media Marketing

Danny Sullivan posts “Facebook Finally Gets Hashtags: How They Work” at Marketing Land.

Chris Crum posts “Is The Facebook Hashtag A Game-Changer In Marketing?” at WebProNews.

Seth Fiegerman posts “Facebook Hashtags Take a Page From Twitter’s Ad Business” at Mashable.

Greg Finn discusses “Why The New Facebook Hashtags Are #Awkward & #Unnecessary” at Marketing Land.

Justin Lafferty takes “A closer look at Facebook’s hashtags” at Inside Facebook.

Pamela Vaughan reports “Twitter Starts Rolling Out Tweet Performance Analytics to More Users” at HubSpot.

Lee Odden posts “Opening Up Twitter Analytics to All – Smart Marketing Move ala Google” at TopRank.

Rebekah Radice shares “11 Simple Tactics to Get More Twitter Followers (the right way).”

Daniel Sharkov shares “5 Useful Twitter Tools that Will Save You Lots of Time and Energy” at Reviewz ’N’ Tips.

Citing eMarketer data for 2012, Greg Sterling posts “Report: Google Grabs 52 Percent Of Mobile Ad Dollars Globally” at Marketing Land.

Angela Natividad posts “#SocialSkim: Social Media This Week, Including Apple’s Big Announcements” at MarketingProfs.

David Taintor reports “Myspace Relaunches with $20 Million Ad Campaign” at Adweek.

Ginny Marvin posts “Google Celebrates 10 Years Of AdSense: Says Over 2 Million Publishers Earned More Than $7 Billion Last Year” at Marketing Land.

Cheryl Burgess posts “Facebook Home – The Pursuit of Social WOW for Brands” at Blue Focus Marketing.

Kristi Hines posts “The 2013 Google+ Marketing Guide” at KISSmetrics.

Mike Alton discusses a handy new G+ feature with “New Google+ Notifications Make Life Easier” at The Social Media Hat.

Charity Stebbins posts “Engage the experts: winning content strategies for LinkedIn Groups” at Econsultancy.

Monica Wright discusses “The Frustrations Of Brand Marketing On LinkedIn” at Marketing Land.

Katie Elizabeth discusses “How to Become a Social Media Manager” at Level 343.

Leo Widrich posts “A scientific guide to writing great headlines on Twitter, Facebook and your Blog” at The Buffer Blog.

Jason Miller discusses “7 Reasons Your Facebook Page is a Hot Mess” at Convince & Convert.

Jason Parks posts “How to Create a Perfect Facebook Promoted Post that Doesn’t Break the Rules” at Jeff Bullas’s Blog.

Andrea Vahl shares “4 Easy Steps to Implement a Facebook Marketing Strategy” at Social Media Examiner.

Brian Solis talks digital Darwinism with “Disruptive Selection: Nature’s Way of Weeding Out the Average Business.”

Kristi Hines discusses “Optimizing Your Social Media Updates for Search” at iAcquire.

Heidi Cohen discusses “Hidden Social Media Costs.”

Events:

• Social Fresh West 2013 will return to San Diego August 22^nd and 23^rd.
• Social Brand Forum 2013 will be held in “Iowa’s Creative Corridor” in Coralville, October 24^th and 25th.

(For an all-in-one listing and description of social media, content & inbound marketing events, check out Neal Schaffer’s “The 12 Best Social Media Conferences to Attend in 2013” at Social Media Today.)

photo thanks to Bala Sivakumar (.Bala)