SEO Content Marketing Roundup, Week Ending July 6th, 2011

You’ve surely heard about it: Google’s most recent attempt at carving out a social platform, Google Plus, has everyone abuzz with speculation, opinions, and analyses. As highlighted in this week’s latest and greatest Web writing news, social media grows ever more influential, and is now undeniably an integral part of search and SEO.  Embracing this union is content marketing in its myriad forms.  Catch up with the best of the best here…

Content Marketing:

Chris Brogan explores ways to blog with Google Plus.

Brian Clark of Copyblogger posts a surefire way to know if your content will rock, and CMI posts 10 ways to write like a content marketing jedi.

Mashable posts a how-to on measuring the ROI of your content marketing strategy.

HubSpot acknowledged independence day for U.S. readers with marketing advice from the founding fathers.

Seth Godin posts paying attention to the attention economy.

Heidi Cohen guest posts 10 essential content creation skills at Content Marketing Institute, and Joe Pulizzi explains how to create a content marketing advisory board for your organization.

ProBlogger has released its guide to business blogging, available for purchase/download (and reviewed at Copyblogger).

Marketing Sherpa posts a case study showing how HP boosted its sales by an astounding 2050-percent by combining offline and online marketing.

eMarketer reports that search and display trends have pushed online ad spending past $31 billion, with Google, Facebook and mobile contributing to the growth (and video representing the fastest-growing format).

Mashable posts “the end of demographics,” discussing how marketers are going “deeper” with consumers’ personal data.

SEO & Search:

Kaila Strong of Vertical Measures shares a great collection of posts regarding Google Plus, and discusses the social engagement insights now available with Google Analytics.

Others weighing in on Google’s social initiative include SEO by the Sea (“Will Google Make Browsing a Web Page a Social Activity Too?”), and Search Engine Watch (“Google Tries Again to Get Social with Google Project”).

Among the changes attendant with Google’s Plus project is the end of its Wonder Wheel (Search Engine Land), the introduction of its “What Do You Love” search feature (Search Engine Watch), and the rebranding of Blogger and Picasa (Mashable).

Gabriella Sannino discusses social SEO and the challenge of real-time search in a thoughtful post,“Google Social Search Tweeted to Numero Uno,” at Level343.

Aaron Wall blasts social ranking signals, posting that Bing & Google require “social spam” for businesses to compete in search at SEO Book.

Ian Lurie posts the apparent end of real-time search with Google dropping Twitter at Conversation Marketing.

Meanwhile, Google’s Webmaster blog posts going beyond page rank to “actionable metrics.”

Privacy and sharing was the topic of several posts:  “Google+ ‘Re-Share’: a Privacy Loophole” and “Google+ Must Focus on Sharing with Purpose, not Privacy” (both at Search Engine Watch) and “Does Privacy Exist in a World of Social Networks and Sharing?” at GigaOm.

Search Engine Land’s 100% Organic Column features “The Bleak Future of Commoditized, Outsourced SEO.”

Will Critchlow discusses “the huge untapped potential” of Q&A content for SEO at SEOmoz.

Five linking mistakes you didn’t know you were making are at SEOmoz, while Search Engine Journal posts “Winning Your Link Independence.”

Social Media Marketing:

“Google domination(?)” headlines Social Media Examiner’s weekly news, and SME also features a guest post by Kristi Hines on how to get started with Google Plus (a “complete guide”).

Search Engine Watch posts “Social Networks Grade Google Plus Project,” while Mack Collier posts the key feature that neither Google Plus or Facebook really addresses.

Jay Baer’s take on Google Plus, “Why Google Has the Hammer To Make Businesses Use Google Plus,” is posted at Convince and Convert.

Several sites had noted that you can import/invite you entire Facebook graph into Google Plus, including ZDNet, but it appears that Facebook has since blocked this Google Plus Chrome extension, reports Business Insider.

Mashable reports that Twitter has surpassed 200 million tweets per day, while TechCrunch wonders how many of those come from bots.

HubSpot is offering a free 40-page ebook on how to master Twitter (for business), and posts a collection of 10 new Twitter infographics for 2011.

Pam Foster (guest) posts five steps to building a powerful business referral network with LinkedIn at SEO Copywriting.

Lee Odden of Top Rank posts driving social media and customer acquisition throughout the customer lifecycle, and eMarketer reports that social network comments fuel offline behavior.

WebPro News cites Social Twist CEO Vijay Pullur in posting that social couponing combined with daily deals is a better strategy for targeting customers.

GigaOm posts that the tablet will be the center of the connected lifestyle.

MLT Creative posts what it has learned to date about social media in B2B Marketing.

HubSpot posts the top five metrics to use in auditing your social media marketing ROI.

J.R. Pittman posts “Twitter, Tweets and Buttons” at Level343, and Neuromarketing posts an interesting social media marketing campaign planned by a fragrance manufacturer.

Finally, lessons in social media brand reputation (observing athletes on Twitter) are posted at PR Web.