As a search engine, Google has become increasingly sophisticated over the years. Back in the day, it was pretty easy to fool Google into thinking your site deserved to have a high ranking, and SEO developed as a technique for marketers to make sure that their sites came up as high as possible. Of course, not all sites that achieved high rankings deserved it - often the quality of a site had little to do with whether or not it ranked highly in search results.
Just as search engines update their algorithms from time to time, SEO as a marketing tool is constantly evolving. Practices that were both effective and encouraged five years ago are likely not the same ones you'd want to use on a website today.
2010 was a big year in terms of businesses starting to establish a social media presence, and 2011 expanded on that with an explosion in the number of businesses that started taking social media seriously as a marketing tool. Now that we've done an adequate amount of setting things up, it's time to start thinking of 2012 as the year when we really push forward and begin to innovate in terms of using social media in the best possible way, and customizing the experience so that each business is serving its own customers in a manner that suits their particular situation.
You probably already have a strong SEO strategy for your company's website, and of course that's important. Providing regular doses of fresh and relevant content on your blog, for example, is a great way to keep search engines interested in your site, which will in turn drive traffic to your business.
Recently, Netflix announced that its streaming content service would be separating from its extremely popular and successful DVD rentals service, and that the company would be rebranding the DVD service under a new name: Qwikster. Although the change in this case has been so well publicized (and criticized) that it's difficult to imagine the target market not hearing about the new brand, Netflix is still going to have to deal to some extent with what smaller business owners have to take into heavy consideration when rebranding: continuity of SEO.
It’s fairly well known that a solid social media strategy is very effective in raising awareness around a brand. What is less known, is that social media also serves as a powerful tool in search engine optimization. Today, search engines can index or “crawl” and rank a Facebook fan page, a LinkedIn professional profile, blog…
I've shared many times on the importance of a well-optimized web presence. Building a great website or social marketing 
campaign with no SEO strategy or plan is a waste of precious marketing dollars and time. The following tips, courtesy of Hubspot.com, outline some simple strategies any small business can follow to make sure their site is seen - and ranked - by the search engines:
I hosted a webinar last week entitled "How to Grow Your Business Using Social Media" and much of the content covered three main points: how to use social media to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and the SEO benefits of social media. If done right, a well-branded social media network can serve as a powerful…
