Sadly, this roundup comes alongside the end of summer. With colder months ahead, you’ll have plenty of time to catch up on your industry reading. This month we included articles looking at the fallout from Panda 4.2, why no one is reading your blogs posts (sad we know), and optimizing your tweets for search in the social media era. Here are the rest of the best SEO, content marketing, and social media articles from August.. If you’re looking for the same great content the rest of the year, don’t forget to check in with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
SEO
Infinite Scroll & SEO: Do They Mix?
At a recent SEO training, I met a webmaster who excitedly told me that he was going to soon be implementing infinite scroll on his website. LATimes.com’s indefinitely scrolling articles immediately popped into my head and I told him that was awesome … and then I wondered why we don’t use infinite scroll on our own blog or site.
Is the Google Phantom 2 Update Based More On User Experience?
In the search world we have all become accustomed to the continued algorithm updates that are rolled out, trying to make sense of them, being proactive and reactive (mobilegeddon being one) and in some cases being agile enough to change where needed so our pages and domains don’t lose their rank and traffic when it comes to the mighty Google.
INFOGRAPHIC: Google Algorithm Updates from 2003 to 2015
Google has rolled out updates for many years. Updating its algorithm many times, SEOs have to be very reactive to every moves. This infographic introduces the main algorithm updates since 2003. Panda, Mobile-friendly, Hummingbird or Phantom, they are all here.
App Indexing & The New Frontier Of SEO: Google Search + Deep Linking
In this article, you’ll learn how Google is surfacing deep app content and how SEOs can prepare iOS and Android deep app screens for Google’s index. Google is making significant moves to close the gap between app and Web content to make mobile interaction more seamless, and that theme will reappear throughout the analysis.
10 Smart Ways to Earn or Build Backlinks to Your Website
“Backlinks,” meaning sites that link to your site, are, for most search engines, the supreme ranking factor. So is getting more organic traffic. Because that traffic is directly related to the quality of the backlinks your website has, the more authoritative websites that link to you, the better rankings and traffic you’ll get.
The New Era of SEO: Optimize for People Before Searchbots
Dating back to when the first mainstream consumer search engines became available in the mid-nineties, digital marketers have desired to see their businesses succeed in the lucrative but often confusing search marketing landscape. And thus search engine optimization (SEO) was born.
Is Responsive Design A Ranking Factor?
Google has stated multiple times that responsive design is their preferred mobile configuration, leading many to speculate that responsive sites might get a rankings boost. Columnist Clay Cazier explores this idea to see if it has any merit.
Content Marketing
12+ Ways to Use Web Analytics for Better Content Marketing
Bounce rates, referring links, time on site, page views – the availability of data about your website visitors can astound even the best content marketer. How do you know what data is important to your content marketing and how do you turn it into a treasure trove for your content marketing success?
The 10 Commandments of Content Marketing
Marketers often confuse content marketing with engagement. Just because you get someone’s attention doesn’t mean your audience actually cares. You spend all of this time following the work of others, listening to experts who preach soundbites and executing against a programmatic calendar only to miss the very thing that connects with people…relevance.
27 Reasons People Aren’t Reading Your Blog Posts
Do you ever look at prolific blogs and get frustrated by how easy they make it seem? Thousands of people read, comment and share each new post on the blog. It can be discouraging, especially if you’re a new blogger.
The Generational Content Gap: How Different Age Groups Consume Content
What do you buy? What makes you loyal to a brand? Where do you spend your time? If you could ask a modern 18-year-old and one from 25 years ago those same questions, you would probably get very different answers.
Is Podcasting Replacing Written Content Marketing?
That is the question. It’s the question I’m asked as soon as someone discovers that I manage the editorial team for Copyblogger. You see back in March, there was a sudden influx of audio content here on the pages of Copyblogger.
Social Media
How to Optimize Your Tweets for Search
Do you want more exposure for your Twitter account? Have you thought about applying SEO tactics to your Twitter marketing? With a few simple techniques, you can increase the chances that your Twitter account shows up in both Twitter and Google search.
How to Leverage Social Media for SEO: Link Building
I recently asked a room of experienced marketers how they thought social media marketing could assist their SEO efforts. The answers were more or less what I had expected to hear:
Here’s Why Instagram Chose to Break the Frame
Instagram cracked the restrictive barriers of its iconic square format yesterday, announcing to the world that it intends to remain the dominant platform of the visual content world. Initially created so that the every picture could be seen full screen on any device and any orientation, the square frame also incidentally made reference to the Polaroid format, adding another touch of the nostalgia that made Instagram so popular. So why change it?
Maximizing Engagement on Google Plus
On July 27th, Google made another major move related to Google Plus. In the coming months you will no longer be required to have a Google+ account to use Google’s other services, such as YouTube. Their reasoning is covered in detail in a post by Google VP of Social, Photos & Streams, Bradley Horowitz, called Everything in its right place.
Have you ever thought about being a cat photographer? It could be a valuable skill to have in the Internet age 🙂
Image Credit: Flick User/Luna Jubilee / !bang poses