SearchInfluence

There has been much discussion about the Huffington Post since the announcement of its acquisition by AOL early this month.

Content Farms are like the McDonald's of Content.

There has been a lot of praise and criticism for its internet marketing and SEO tactics including content-farming, a practice of creating, many times tremendously low quality, pieces solely for the purpose of attracting visitors via trending searches.

A recent study conducted by software and website training company Intellimon has revealed some fairly eye-opening findings about the use of social media in traffic generation for online businesses. They surveyed over 4,000 online business owners earlier this year and the results surprised everyone, including those conducting the study.

67% of those surveyed utilize Facebook to promote their business. Of those, only 29% said the platform is an effective means of driving traffic to their site. Similarly, of those businesses using Twitter, only 27.2% found it effective.

Sun Tzu wrote the handbook for how to achieve success in war in the 6^th century BCE, and nothing has taken its place since. He established rules of battle that are still used to this day. Why am I writing about the Art of War in a blog belonging to an SEO company? Well, because the strategies used for one can also be used for the other. Follow these rules and your business can be well on its way to winning the game of global domination.

Australia's the key to the whole game.

What is the function of your website?  Do you use your website as an information tool?  Do you use it as an arm of your sales team?  Why not have your website do both?  Too often small business owners focus on creating a flashy, aesthetically pleasing website. Instead, they should focus on a website that produces results.

The Web Analytics Association defines conversion as a “percentage of a visitor type who complete a multistep conversion process with a defined beginning and end within 30 minutes, whether it be signing up for a newsletter, buying a product online or some other desired outcome.”

One of the most important and oft-overlooked aspect of SEO is link building. Link building strategies are one of the simplest concepts, but most make it more difficult than it needs to be. For instance, Sage Lewis defines link building as, “The integration of useful elements into a whole Web site to allow for the accretion of links through natural means.” Sage obviously doesn’t follow one of the mottos I live my life by: Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.