SEO:
Google is beginning to take action against sites that host spammy guest blog posts, and the results are quite tangible. Earlier this week, the owner of MyBlogGuest.com, a large network for guest blog posting, confirmed that she received a penalty from the search engine. Initially there was confusion over whether publishers who participated in the MyBlogGuest network would also be penalized, and it appears that the answer is ‘yes.’ Google’s head of search spam tweeted, “when we take action on a spammy link network, it can include blogs hosting guest posts, site benefiting from the links, etc.” Site owners who have used MyBlogGuest to publish posts are reporting drops in the rankings, as well.
While on the topic of rankings, research from comScore is indicating that Google’s share of US search query volume has stayed stagnant over the last year, while Bing’s has grown. In February 2013, Google had a 67.5 percent share, Bing had 16.7, and Yahoo held 11.6 percent. Compared with this year, in February 2014, Google’s share is at an identical 67.5, Bing grew to 18.4 percent, and Yahoo dwindled down to 10.3. These figures, however, do not include mobile search share or query volumes. In terms of mobile figures, Google continues to dominate with 87.1 percent, followed by Yahoo with 7.3 and Bing with 5.2.
When mobile search queries surpass PC-based search volumes (likely to happen this year), Google will have to continue taking measures to keep its lead against the competition.
Social Media:
Happy birthday Twitter! This week marks the 8th year of the Social Media Giant. As a birthday gift from Twitter to their users, you can find your very first tweet and celebrate first Tweets together by using the hashtag #FirstTweet.
Social media is becoming more and more prevalent in customer service strategies for many companies.
However, while some excel with integrating social media platforms into their services, others continue to fail. In order to succeed, businesses need to implement social teams that are well-trained and properly qualified, as well as tools that can facilitate tasks like assigning conversations to be handled by different team members. Engagement cannot be robotic, and customer service availability needs to exist beyond the 9-5 business day. As technology flourishes, customer service needs to adapt.
While it may be impractical to handle all transactions via Twitter or Facebook, making those platforms available for handling post-workday queries and weekend responses is an excellent start toward improving a business’ service strategy.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has taken on a new leadership role, teaming up with the Girl Scouts of America in the #banbossy campaign, which strives to bring awareness to the negative impacts which condescending language and labeling can have on stifling the ambitions and leadership potential of young girls.
The campaign’s website points out that, “By [the age of 12], girls are less interested in leading than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood.” Taking this cause to the Internet and social media is a strategic move toward getting assertive young girls to be seen positively as strong leaders, rather than as just “bossy.”
Content:
A recent experiment, which focused on the topic of blogger outreach, helped to demonstrate just how content marketing works. The marketer who conducted this experiment first wrote a handful of new posts about blogger outreach over the course of a couple months. He then set up a Resource Page about blogger outreach, on which he collected relevant posts in order to connect them with one another and show search engines that they belong together.
He also linked the resource page from his universal sidebar and began pushing for a specific outreach technique known as Honeymoon Outreach. This helped him to stand out. The result from all his work included several invitations to do talks about blogger outreach, some hefty endorsements, a lot of sales leads, new relationships within the digital marketing industry, and bountiful opportunities for networking. This marketer used content marketing to establish himself as an authority figure on a specific topic, which affected the perception of himself as a brand. The lesson that he wishes to instill from this process is that “the secret behind getting through the noise via content marketing is FOCUS.”
Sources:
- Schwartz, Barry. Google’s Matt Cutts Implies MyBlogGuest Publishers Will Received Penalties SearchEngineLand
- Sterling, Greg. Google Search Share Stable, Bing Growth Continues At Yahoo’s ExpenseSearchEngineLand
- Stricker, Gabriel, https://blog.twitter.com/2014/on-twitters-8th-birthday-find-your-first-tweet Twitter
- De Beule, Sofie. How Most Companies Fail at Social Customer Service Social Media Today
- McCollam, Candida. Social Media Consciousness Raising Social Media Today
- Silfwer, Jerry. An Experiment That Shows How Content Marketing Works Social Media Today
