SEO Content Marketing Roundup, Week Ending March 21st, 2012

Happy Spring, tra-la-tra-la! In this week’s latest and greatest Web-writing news, marketers seem to have caught a collective spring fever with feverish posts all around. Content marketers focus on blogging, the SEO and search community buzz about Google’s newest analytics perk and latest SEO penalty, while social media marketers talk everything Facebook and then some.

Take your own little spring break and enjoy the best of the web…

Content Marketing

Lee Odden answers three key questions about the value of small business blogging, from why SMB’s should to the SEO vs. social debate, at Top Rank.

Kathryn Hawkins shares four ways to determine if you’re getting the right visitors to your business blog at Content Marketing Institute.

Neil Patel posts “The no-fail guide to writing popular blog posts” at PR Web.

Heidi Cohen posts a chart depicting content marketing as “The Power at the Heart of Social Media, Search, and Sales” with great details at ClickZ

The question of witty vs. search engine optimized headlines is discussed with “Is Clever Better…?” at Content Marketing Today.

Koozai’s Mike Essex gives the latest SEOmoz “Whiteboard Friday” presentation, on how to create awesome content around boring niches.

Pew Internet posts an interesting video presentation on mobile marketing in the U.S. with “The State of Mobile America”, by Pew Internet Director Lee Rainie.

Clare McDermott posts a full-length interview with PR & marketing author David (“Real Time”) Meerman Scott, who shares his predictions for content marketing and more over the next three years, at Content Marketing Institute.

SEO & Search

Marketing Sherpa’s weekly research chart shows the allocation of internet marketing dollars, with PPC, SEO and websites receiving the biggest chunk of change.

So is Apple about to launch a new global search engine? Andy Atkins-Kruger entertains the question at Search Engine Land.

Miranda Miller reports on Google’s new “Social Reports” analytics feature that captures those elusive social media source and conversion value metrics (including G+) at Search Engine Watch.

Bill Slawski weighs in on Google’ upcoming over-optimization penalty -and much more – with “Predicting SEO Changes in Rankings, Algorithms, and Penalties” at SEO by the Sea.

In an unrelated (perhaps prophetic?) post, Level 343 discusses how to build content for SEO “without bombarding readers.”

Referring to a now widely-cited Wall Street Journal article (“Google Gives Search a Refresh”, discussing its new “semantic search”), Danny Sullivan argues that Google has already been at this semantic search for some time at Search Engine Land.

Jason Keath posts a smart infographic on Search vs. Social, discussing and illustrating which medium is best for what goals, at Social Fresh.

Citing the “social search revolution” (Google’s Search Plus), Jordan Kasteler posts eight social SEO strategies to start using (“right now”) at Search Engine Land.

Discussing the convergence of SEO with social, content, and inbound marketing strategies, Andy Betts pens “Inbound Marketing & SEO – Seize Opportunity or Resist Change” at Search Engine Watch.

Joe Rega “pins” Betts’ SEW article (above) with a right/left brain infographic at Pinterest.

Danny Sullivan reports that Google is now highlighting the latest posts from Google+ pages and profiles in its search results, at Search Engine Land.

David Angotti reports that Google is replacing PPC Ads with Google+ content for selected queries (and the implications) at Search Engine Journal.

Arnie Kuenn posts a video on what initial link building every website must do as part of Vertical Measures’ weekly Wednesday Q&A series.

Phil Sharp posts “How Sitelinks Are Quietly Costing You Conversions” at SEOmoz.

Peter van der Graaf discusses keyword ROI at Search Engine Watch.

Christian Arno shares “Top SEO Tips on Multilingual Keywords”, also at Search Engine Watch.

Alan Bleiweiss interviews Andy Chu, the director at Bing for Mobile, at Search Engine Journal.

Selena Narayanasamy of Blue Glass Interactive posts a visual guide to Google’s rich snippets at SEOmoz.

Paddy Moogan of Distilled discusses “How and Why SEOs Need to Change” at State of Search.

Ann Smarty reviews a free tool for checking and optimizing your images at Search Engine Journal.

Erez Barak shares three examples of “killer” landing pages that convert at Search Engine Watch.

Lance Ulanoff posts a wrap of his experience at SXSW 2012 at Mashable.

Top Rank’s Ashley Zeckman posts seven lessons she learned about “business optimization” from Avinash Kaushik’s keynote at SESNY.

Social Media Marketing

Cindy King taps nine social media marketing pros for their tips at Social Media Examiner.

Ann Smarty lists five social media events organized by and for women in 2012 at Search Engine Journal.

Matt McGee reports that Twitter advertisers can now target promoted tweet campaigns to mobile users, at Marketing Land.

Contently’s Erica Swallow shares five tips (“do’s and don’ts”) for turning fans into brand advocates, from SWSX, at The Content Strategist.

Ann-Marie Jancovich posts social media tips for small businesses at Vertical Measures.

Kevin Dean discusses using neuroscience to gain insight into the social customer, at Social Fresh.

Pamela Vaughan posts “13 Brands Using LinkedIn Company Page Features the Right Way” at HubSpot.

Kristi Hines posts six tools used by social media experts to update Facebook pages at KISSmetrics.

Marty Weintraub posts that Facebook has stripped the ability of Facebook ads marketers to target users interested in Facebook ads – (“#wtf?”) – at aimClear.

Fun! Manny Rivas posts a gallery of Facebook ads – “the good, the bad, and the inexplicable” – at Search Engine Watch.

Brittany Darwell reports that Facebook has added a “recommendations” box to Timeline pages that are associated with (specific physical) locations, at Inside Facebook.

Ardala Evans posts what Facebook’s “Interests” mean for your business page at Vertical Measures (hint: users don’t have to ‘like’ you…)

Kaila Strong posts “4 Creative Ways to Use the New Facebook Brand Pages” at Search Engine Watch.

Mike Stenger explains Google+ “Ripples” and how the feature can provide social sharing insights at Social Media Examiner.

Referring to Google+, Juliana Payson posts “Finally, a social network that allows self-promotion” at Sexy Social Media.

Mack Collier posts “Social Media Gives Companies a New and Exciting Way to Make the Same Boring Marketing Mistakes” at his blog.

Jeff Bullas discusses what Pinterest is and how to use it for marketing your business.

Ann Smarty posts “How to Track Your Website’s Content on Pinterest” at Mashable.

photo thanks to boocal (Eoin Gardiner)