The Best Small Business Marketing News & Blog Posts of the Week — January 13, 2011

Posted January 13, 2012 by DIYSEO Team (0 comments)

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This post is meant to be helpful for all levels of SEO expertise. You can also find DIYSEO posts classified by level of expertise on the following pages:

Most of the Web seemed to be working hard again this week. They really seem to be taking a big bite of their 2012 pie and digging right in to this year’s marketing plans. We know we were. It’s a great feeling to begin a new year with your eyes to the future and tons of potential on the road ahead of you. And, as usual, we’ve been keeping our eyes on the blogosphere as well and have gathered a great list of posts published this week that you’re not going to want to miss.

This week, you’ll find our round up is filled with some excellent posts on topics we don’t normally cover. Those new to the industry can learn a bit about affiliate marketing and what goes into ‘authority’. Readers who have been around a while can get some interesting facts on bloggers and take time to improve their post-sale marketing skills. Finally, visitors who’ve been in the industry a bit longer than “a while” will be tickled with the discussions on referral data, retargeting, and on finding new customers. It’s good stuff!

Beginner SEO and Marketing

Successful Affiliate Marketing Strategies You Can Apply Today — Affiliate marketing can be a bit scary if you’re a new website owner or new to the business. But if you’re looking for some extra cash and new income streams, it may be just the thing you were looking for. Corin Zander had a great introduction to the space this week.

Web Marketing Influence: Authority — We all hear about ‘authority’ and ‘influence’ and how important they are, but what are they really? And how do you get more of it? The Flyte blog did a fantastic job of attempting to answer these questions this week. This one on authority is just one in a full series they’ve published on the topic. The South Park image was pretty great, too, we thought.

Intermediate SEO, Marketing & Business Tips

Marketing Between the Sale and Delivery — “It’s cheaper to sell to existing clients than it is to find new ones.” This statement might have been popular years ago, but it still rings true today. And part of keeping existing customers is providing good customer care and making sure everyone gets what they expect. This piece from Rebar Business Builders did an excellent job of looking at how you can handle these situations.

Blogosphere Facts — Can You Handle the Truth? — You have to understand your audience and know whom it is you’re working with, and this goes for bloggers, too. And the more you know, the easier it will be to work with them. So, whether you’re executing an outreach program, selling to them, using them to expand your content network, or working with them to get the word out about your company, you’ll want to have a look at these statistics.

Advanced SEO, Marketing & Business Links

5 Steps for Finding New Customers — Finding new customers is vital to a successful business in any industry. This week, Preation had a brilliant post on the five important steps for identifying audiences who need the products and services you have to offer. And what we really loved about this one is that it’s valuable to everyone, no matter where you are in the marketing process or how long you’ve been in business.

Retargeting in 2012: Will You Annoy Your Past Customers? — Retargeting has been a hot topic among businesses and marketers for quite some. This year will be no exception. After all, what better way to bring people back to the site and help rekindle the love affair between you and previous clients? Marketing for Success’ Amanda DiSilvestro had a great look at the practice and how you can avoid irritating customers this year.

Google’s [Not Provided]: Assessing 2.5 Months of Analytics Damage — When Google changed it’s mind about passing on keyword referral data from users who were signed in and using encrypted search, it caused a huge outcry from site owners. Now that things have had a chance to relax a bit, Matt McGee provided some insight into how the change has changed analytics. Be sure to check out the comments to see what others have noticed and leave your own findings.

Great Posts Published This Week Everyone Should Check Out

Google Search Plus Is Shaking Things Up a Bit — The integration of Google + into the search results really shook things up this week. John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing took a good look at it and how it might affect site owners.

And if you’d like to learn a bit more, check out Buzz Booster’s Google plus Search Your World and Your Business and TopRank’s post on the topic: What Google Personalized Search plus Your World Means for Marketing – SEO Tips. You might also want to go back and read Google’s official announcement on the launch of the rel=author tag.

Google Caught Buying Paid Links — Penalizes Their Own Website — Usually, we hear about some big company getting caught by the search engines for paid links, but this week, it was Google who got caught in its own web. That’s right. They caught themselves buying paid links for Chrome, and before we knew it, Chrome wasn’t appearing on searches for [browser].