Best of Blogs: December 2007 Archives

If you are looking for outside help on search engine optimization, Marios Alexandrou's list of 55 SEO Interview Questions is must reading.

Andy Beal explains the Top 10 Business Mistakes Search Marketing Firms Make. Reading this might suggest further interview questions for your SEO interviews.

Lee Odden put together a List of Regional Search and Interactive Marketing Associations. He points out that only a few years ago not many of these organizations existed. The fact they do now indicates the growth of search marketing and the (healthy) development of standards.

InsideCRM offers 101 Ways to Monetize Your Blog Without Irritating Your Readers. In particular, you may be surprised to learn how many choices you have for ads and affiliate programs.

Marketing activities must be integrated to be effective. Evil Green Monkey explains how to take advantage of offline advertising to strengthen your online advertising. It's a simple bridge companies often fail to build.

If you're looking for a benchmark for your e-commerce Web site, look no further. Here is a list of the Top 10 Retailers by Conversion Rate. What better way to measure success than by conversions?

Jennifer Osborne explains the Top 5 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid when Optimizing a Website.  As we all know,  Web sites are written for two types of readers  - human readers and search engines. Copywriters must always be mindful of SEO principles. Jennifer makes the excellent point that search engine optimization is more than a technical function. SEO projects must take full account of marketing principles for their work to be effective.

Half the challenge of developing a profitable online business is building the correct model. Doshdosh gives us 16 Types of Websites You Can Create for Profit. Where does your Web site fit in?

Carsten Cumbrowski lists 11 Steps to Successful SEO for Your Business. It's a wonderful road map, not only for knowing what needs to be done, but when to do it.  Note that his final point is to carefully analyze conversions, which takes us back to the Evil Green Monkey, as it were.

Looking for the appropriate social network for business purposes? Squareoak put together this list of 83 social news sites. Categories include autos, business, environmental, and Web design.

Michael Martinez wrote this helpful and comprehensible post on creating sound Web site architecture.

Online privacy is a growing issue among consumers. Read how Ask.com is trying to give search engine users anonymity through its new tool, AskEraser.

Search engine marketing is work, no doubt about it. Ian Lurie decodes 10 Great Internet Marketing Excuses. They may ring uncomfortably true. No worries - with 2008 is right around the corner, it's the perfect time for new marketing resolutions!

Skellie's Essential Website Usability Checklist makes a great starting point for Web site design and redesign projects. In this season of reflection,  consider taking a few moments to apply this checklist to your Web site. How well do you score?

Search engine marketing is not an island - it should be part of an overall marketing plan that incorporates diverse elements. Direct mail can be a wonderful complement to search marketing, and this post by Brian Whiteman summarizes how to do direct mail right.

Do meta descriptions matter? There are many schools of thought. Jill gives the topic of meta descriptions a thorough review that will sharpen you search marketing effectiveness.

In the world of search engine optimization (SEO), misinformation and misconceptions abound. This is due partly to the fact that search engine optimization is an inexact science. To a certain extent, the experts are shadow boxing with the search engines, whose search algorithms are closely guarded secrets. To get an idea of the greyness, read how one expert, Gyutae Park, refutes the arguments of another expert.

And here, by Vinnie Goldsmith, is the post Gyutae takes issue with.

Shaun Anderson likens internal Web site navigation and architecture to a heating system. It's a practical metaphor for a rather abstract subject, and I think it helps us understand how to build a Web site that works for readers and search engines.

For any pay per click (PPC) campaign, a persuasive landing page is essential. Scott from Stepforth offers 5 simple but crucial tips for raising landing page conversions.

Have an online store? Stoney deGeyter reveals 12 tips for making product pages more effective. How many of these 12 do your product pages adhere to? Very few online stores adhere to them all. Highly instructive.

Major search engines have been buying up SEO firms like they're going out of style. This conflict of interest is, or should be, a concern for online marketers. Scott Buresh lays out the problem and explores the implications.