SMB Marketing Monitor

The days of being a half-assed link builder are over. For those looking to hire (or perhaps fire) a link builder, be it in-house or via an agency, you can confidently identify the ability and savvy of a link builder with just five questions.

Using popular questions to fuel content ideation is one way to unearth keyword ideas. So where and how do you find popular questions for your niche to build content around? Here are some ideas, which range from pedestrian to more advanced tactics.

Taking a deep dive into the number of competitors that appear alongside your ads, as well as hourly and daily costs per click, can provide valuable insights that help you optimize to variances throughout the day and respond to consumer demand.

Hit by a Google penalty because low-quality sites are linking to yours? This process will help you conduct a backlink audit of your website, drill down to identify bad links, and share tools to help you hunt down people who can remove those links.

"Online daily deal provider Groupon, once the darling of Wall Street, has had its share of woes in recent months. Its stock is down over 50% from November's IPO price, thanks in part to a pending SEC investigation of the company’s Q4 2011 earnings restatement (actual net revenue was significantly lower when refunds to consumers for unused deals were factored in). In addition, merchants are beginning to pull back from Groupon, surveying their options in an increasingly crowded geo-local marketing landscape that includes the likes of Yelp, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Living Social and Foursquare, to name a few."

"SEO strategies have gone through incredible amounts of evolution over the last year. From algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda to new search engine restrictions on overoptimization and spammy links, optimization methods for getting the best rankings in search engines all across the web have advanced. The recent power of social sharing has had a huge effect on search, and search engine company recommendations to get the best rankings in their search engines have changed as crawl tactics are getting smarter. SEOs of all levels have had to re-learn strategies and best practices to make sure their website’s SEO is set up for winning results."

The Penguin update sent a strong message that not knowing SEO basics is going to be dangerous in the future. You have to have the basics down or you could be at risk.

"Hugh McLeod agreed to do a Gaping Void cartoon interpretation of Marketing in the Round. Here’s what he drew. It’s so strong, I couldn’t write a 500 word blog post to it. The creative spoke for itself. But in the spirit of Mad Men I did riff on it and wrote some brief ad copy."

"Now sometimes talking to a Developer is like being in the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars, they perhaps look a bit odd, the words coming out of their mouth are all a bit weird, and behind them it’s more than likely someone is playing with a light saber. So getting your site plans, messages, tone of voice and customer journey down on paper before you start, means you know what you want, and it’s their job to make it happen."

"Choosing a name may not seem like the biggest challenge your company faces, but the right name can influence buyers and become a staple of your company's entire image."