Ever since the introduction of Panda and Google’s new focus on the vague measurement of “quality” in their search results. It’s been harder and harder for SEOs to use their old tricks and get the same results. The writing is on the wall, Google is getting more complex and harder to “game,” so we have to go out and get links the old-fashioned way-actually making compelling content that people want to link to. One of the best ways to do this is to create linkbait.

Linkbait is content that is specifically engineered to be clickable or sharable in order to build links and traffic to your site. Generally, you want your content to be so good that people will not only Tweet about it but also link to it from their website. So how do you build that type of content? What exactly is it that people find awesome enough to link to?

In my experience as an SEO and content specialist, each web community has its own idea of what is cool or linkable. However, there are a number of underlying principles and qualities that contribute to the success of linkbait campaigns no matter what community they are targeted at. How can you make your linkbait better? Here are some ideas.

One of the toughest jobs in the world is marketing yourself and your business. You need to do a ton of research, look at your specific niche and see what your competition is doing, and then ultimately combine everything you learned into an effective marketing campaign. What doesn’t help is a string of strategies that are mediocre at best. If you coordinate your efforts and focus on only a few specific areas to market yourself, you’ll come out on top and end up selling more or getting more traffic.

It is likely that you already have a marketing campaign in line that might be getting you favorable results. While that may be fine, you can absolutely enhance said campaign in a few effective ways.

This article is pertained more towards "SEOs" rather than local business owners. It will teach you how to get local business websites to rank very quickly so that you can rent them out to local business owners. That being said, if you are a local business owner and happen to come across this article - you should pay attention so that you can beat the SEO's to the punch.

So you have a day job. Does it involve link building? Article writing? Computer programming? Web or graphics design? Chances are, that if you are reading this article, you are in some way, shape or form, interested or involved in SEO. If you aren't already, then I am about to explain why you should be.

There are many "hacks" that allow you to get to the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages) for all sorts of different niches - some that the heads of Google absolutely hate, and some that the heads of Google absolute love, and some that the heads of Google have no opinion on. As long as you are providing some type of value to the people that are typing in the search queries, then Google will usually stay out of your way.

What many small business owners or inexperienced domain holders learn the hard way is, a good domain name is worth the time it takes to pick the right one and the cost of paying for a perfect choice (as opposed to a lower end, confusing or cheap one).

Many small business owners build their websites without understanding exactly how their customers will find it. This can lead to a major letdown after you've put a lot of time and energy into building a great looking site, only to have few if any visitors coming to check it out.

It can also put a lot of pressure on you financially to get people over to your site. You may feel compelled to turn to a search engine optimization service. Or you may learn how to optimize your site for search engines yourself. These can both work very well. But unfortunately SEO costs money, and learning it yourself can be confusing and complicated. Additionally SEO takes time and the results are never guaranteed.

A good blog should be keyword targeted, to attract visitors looking for content relevant for your site. The most popular way to find out what people are searching for on the web is Google's Keyword Tool. In fact, there are hundreds of "keyword discovery" software programs out there to help uncover niches and keywords.... but they all mine data straight from this one tool from Google.

With everybody focusing on the same keywords, its no wonder the competition is so fierce. But Google itself admits that most search queries are "one off" searches. In other words, people rarely type in the "exact" keyword, but usually some variation. You may have targeted the term "gold watches" but people are typing things in like "i need a gold watch", "where can i find a gold watch", "best gold watches in atlanta" and tons of random, unpredictable variations.

I run a website on film schools. I am on page 3 for the exact search "film schools", but each month I get more than hundreds of visits through Google from people typing things like "what are the best film schools" or "film schools top 20 USA". These are searches that are usually performed once, by a particular person in a particular time, that will never happen again.

Unfortunately, on the Web, where every user and every browser can display the same page differently, typography has been a tremendous mess. And what about cross-browser compatibility? There are some fonts that will work in every web browse except Internet Explorer, while others only work in Internet Explorer. So not only must you worry about which fonts are best to use, but you also have to keep up with the fonts and browser support.

A combination of licensing and technical challenges has, historically, limited the Web to a relatively small number of “web-safe fonts” that don’t leave a lot of room for creativity or improved readability. However, that is changing fast and fonts on the Web are at something of a crossroads, on the verge of a potential explosion that could rival what print has been able to do for centuries.

Making Sure Your Online Content Stays Yours: Protect Yourself Against Content Thieves

Unlike many articles you may read about social reputation management; managing the reputation of your business across the “social” web is a little more complex than simply having a Twitter account. A lot of social reputation management comes down to internal education and ensuring the people who work for you are aware of your core values, tone of voice, and key messages that need to be portrayed (and this isn’t just confined to social media).

In order for you to appropriately action any of the bad (or good) things being said about you online, there are a number of tools that are now available to effectively monitor your social presence. Keeping an eye on brand, service, and product mentions is key to ensure nothing potentially slips under the radar, and escalates into a bigger problem. The sooner you can resolve any issues online, the less damage that will be caused - and you could even end up looking good in the process.

Here are 10 top tools to help manage your brand’s social presence:

Internet blogging has suddenly become the craze of the age with every industry, be it big or small, trying to be a part of this new trend. From students to corporate establishments, the whole world seems to be caught in the fever of blogging.

But what does ‘blogging’ mean? If you are not much of a tech savvy person, blogging may not have interested you for long. But with increasing number of users opting for this trend, definitely you will not like to be left out. Then why not give it a try? Easy and enticing in itself, blogging can also prove to be a successful tool of promotion for your company.

Read through this article and get a comprehensive knowledge about blogging and its effective tips to practice in order to avail the best benefits of this new trend.

Event Microsites

• All the information about your event can be gathered together in one easy to access place - so you've got an easy place to point punters to in your other promotional materials, e.g. flyers, online listings.
• You can integrate ticket buying and delegate management systems into your event microsite, so you don't have to worry about how to handle and take payments.
• Your microsite can be branded to boost brand recognition, increasing awareness of your event

Having a contest on Facebook is a great way to grow your page quickly, and if done correctly you can get an amazing bang for your buck out of this method. Almost any Social Media Agency is going to want to run some form of contests on a page. The first thing I will disclose and tell you, is there are rules about doing contests on Facebook, and they can delete your page for doing them without following the guidelines, that said, I have seen them done unapproved, I have done them unapproved, but just be aware that this is a risk.

There are several ways to run a Facebook contest, and I have done probably every way in the book, and I will share with you various methods on running one and the do’s and the don’ts. Also, I will go over methods of selecting a winner, IMO this is VERY important if you fly under the Facebook radar for contests. Disgruntled losing fans can wreak havoc on a Facebook marketing campaign, and loud ones will complain to anyone and everyone (including Facebook).