SearchInfluence

We all know those folks who just seem to always have amazing ideas — the ones that can look at a tin can and create a thousand different uses for it. These individuals seem to possess some kind of magic ability to conjure up an idea out of thin air. It seems as if everything is a canvas for them: the color of a living room, a blank wall, or even a cupcake.

What they possess is a creative mindset. And when it comes to online marketing, this magical tool can come in very handy. More than handy, in fact — it’s been the main force behind many dynamic projects, especially on the web.

Every month, Search Influence brings you an array of directly applicable DIY solutions to help you compete online with our Read This! feature. See something that we missed? Let us know in the comments!

Five Steps To Successfully Navigate Negative Online Reviews — Search Engine Land

Has your business recently been victim of a negative review on a social platform such as Yelp? Don’t take legal action just yet: check out this article from Search Engine Land’s Neg Norton on the best ways to assess and address a bad review, merited or not.

Every month, our Read This! series brings you the best in practical web marketing and online presence-building pieces from across the net. Read on for this month’s selection:

• Forget Linkbuilding, Do A Groupon — Local SEO Guide

The Groupon system can have its headaches for the vendor when improperly-applied, but there’s a surprising SEO benefit that many people overlook. Andrew Shotland tells the tale of a company whose organic traffic drop was remedied with one wave of the Groupon wand.

• 3 Tips for Email Gold — Search Engine Journal

I don’t know about you, but I can barely leave my desk without grabbing my iPhone and bringing it with me. I know I’m not alone in this because as of May, more than half of U.S. mobile users have smartphones. Each day more people are interacting with websites, search results and advertisement via some type of mobile format. That is why it has become increasingly more important for businesses to make their websites mobile-friendly.

We’re back with another edition of Read This!, our monthly series exploring the DIY tips and tricks you can use to succeed online today.

• So, Foursquare is a search engine now? How do I get my business to the top of the results? — AboutFourSquare.com

Foursquare is on its way to becoming a hot name in local search, so what can you do to make sure your business is capitalizing on the action? By focusing on check-ins, likes, and community engagement, you’ll be on top of the game and the search results!

Spoooooky October greetings to you, faithful SI readers! We’re back with another Read This, our monthly roundup of the best news you can use to take to the Internet and support your business. Let’s dig in!

• Content Recall: Stop Creating Great Content and Produce Memorable Content Instead — Blind 5 Year Old

The mantra of the Internet is “great content floats to the top,” but the exact definition of “great” is a whole ‘nother rodeo. Instead of flailing around trying to define your content’s greatness, focus on a more advertising-centric metric: memorability. AJ Kohn of Blind Five Year Old takes us through just how you can tweak your efforts to make them more “sticky” and fundamentally appealing to the reader. It’s worth point out that the post itself is a great example!

My husband and I have some friends who are in town every year at the end of August, without fail, so we know we have a dinner date with this couple at the peak of hurricane season every year.

This year, we met our friends on the Saturday night after Hurricane Isaac passed through. Our friends had another couple in New Orleans who had been without power going on five days, so they were desperate to get out of their hot, humid house and enjoy good food in the air conditioning and possibly have a drink or three. The more the merrier, so the four of us were meeting the two of them at the bar.

Hey there, Influencers! Have a back-to-school edition of Read This!, our monthly series exploring the best of the web’s DIY articles that you can use to succeed online today.

• Ultimate WordPress Guide for Small Business [Infographic] — Search Engine Journal

If you run a small-scale website for your business, chances are WordPress has everything you need for content updating, blogging and presentation. Learn more about it with this newbies’ guide to the powerful and intuitive system over at Search Engine Journal!

• Common Technical SEO Problems and How to Solve Them — SEOMoz

“I will take the Link,” [Frodo] said, “though I do not know the way.”

When the Internet was a wild frontier in the ’90s, URLs appeared to me magical glyphs that television advertisers and producers revealed only to the worthy. What secrets would be revealed if I, a ten year-old, borrowed my aunt’s computer to type in “http://www.trojancondoms.com/” as the commercial on MTV requested? What hidden jokes would I learn if that same “net surf sesh” eventually took me to “http://comcentral.com/“, the URL appearing in the end credits of Dr. Katz?

1. How to Get a Video to Rank on YouTube — SEOMoz

With a little help, your video can rank higher for competitive terms on YouTube. The team at SEOmoz went to the whiteboard to give us all a lesson on uploading more effective content on the web’s biggest video resource. Use this advice to increase your views and improve your campaign.

2. London 2012 – A Very Social Olympic Games — Media Bistro