SEO

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...

Following the exciting automotive year-end shopping season, Compete and Twitter partnered together to understand the impact that Tweets posted by automotive companies have on the consumers who see them.  Specifically, we wanted to know whether Tweets influence consumer behavior; are people exposed to an automotive Tweet more likely to visit the manufacturer’s website and take action by locating a dealer, looking at offers or building their own car. To answer these questions, Compete observed 3,289 U.S.-based Internet consumers and 593 U.K.-based Internet consumers who saw Tweets from over 700 companies within the automotive space (manufacturers, dealers, aftermarket/parts and 3rd party online resources) from September 1 to November 30, 2012.  We limited the scope of the study to desktop browsing only (no mobile or table activity) and exposure on Twitter.com only (no Twitter clients were included in the analysis).  We also studied the behavior of two control groups comprised of a similar set of consumers who visited Twitter but did not see an automotive Tweet and who were simply average internet users. Compete and Twitter uncovered two key findings highlighted below: 1. Twitter users, U.S. and U.K. alike, who see Tweets from an automotive company are more likely to visit their websites or conduct a branded search We found that Twitter users who were exposed to an automotive Tweet visited those automotive websites or conducted a branded search at a higher rate than general Internet users. This finding is true for manufacturers and dealers as well as specific categories like aftermarket/parts. Key takeaway: Twitter users are auto enthusiasts. Twitter is a medium for advertisers to impact consumers’ consideration sets from the point of initial decision to purchase. 2. Conversions are influenced by auto Tweets Auto Tweets not only influence consideration, but they drive Twitter users to take lower funnel actions such as locate a dealer, request a quote or explore financing options. Key Takeaway: People who see an automotive Tweet are more likely to make perform a lower funnel activity. This means Twitter users arrive on an automotive website with a higher intent to get information to help inform their purchase decision. Compete and Twitter also uncovered other findings around how exposure to Tweets influences visitation by type of auto manufacturer as well as other interesting results. Click here to download the full U.S. whitepaper or here for the U.K. whitepaper.

At Google I/O, Google Analytics introduced a new feature that's quite a big deal to Premium Analytics users. Google is now giving Analytics Premium users the ability to use Google BigQuery to crunch their analytics data and other offline data sets.

Pinterest has detailed several types of pins that have added information on them, including product pins, recipe pins, and movie pins. But this move is really seen as Pinterest working better with brands who get their products pinned frequently.

I'm sure you heard the news by now, Yahoo has acquired Tumblr for a cool $1.1 billion in cash. Seriously...

Google announced a new keyword tool named the Keyword Planner. The tool can be found under the Tools & Analysis tab when you are logged into your Google AdWords account. The tool combines the benefits of the Keyword Tool and the Traffic Estimator into an integrated workflow...

The Google Data Highlighter tool, which initially launched in December with support for just marking up pages that had event data...

Google Now is now more baked into Google Search. For example, if you do a search for [when is fathers day 2013 or other factual dated queries...

Dove's Real Beauty Sketches is the most-viewed online ad of all time, according to Unruly. It's also the most shared of 2013 and the third most-shared of all time. Dove tapped into an emotional subject and really delivered the goods, and it's one of video's shining moments.

by Brian Dean If you're like most start ups, link building is at the bottom of your overflowing to-do list. Fortunately, you don't need a full-time hire or a pricey SEO firm to bring your site the search engine traffic it needs to thrive. In fact, you only need to set aside a few hours of work per month to take advantage of these these quick and dirty link building opportunities. 1. Turn Brand Mentions Into Links You'd be surprised how often bloggers and media sites mention your site without actually linking to your website. While a mention can help get your name out there, you'll land significantly more referral and search engine traffic by turning these brand mentions into live links. The easiest way to do this is to use Mention.net. Mention is similar to Google Alerts, but has more filtering features and robust reporting. Just enter your brand name into Mention and it shows you your latest mentions on blogs, news sites and social media outlets. If you find a mention in a blog post that's not linked, reach out to the blogger. Thank them for the mention and ask them if they'd be willing to change their plain text mention into an SEO-friendly link. 2. Get Busy Guest Blogging Guest blogging is a bread and butter SEO strategy that lands you links, referral traffic, and important relationships. According to Search Engine Watch, Buffer App took their business from completely unknown to 100,000 paying customers largely through guest blogging. It's important to note that the Buffer team published a whopping 150 guest posts over a 9-month period to reach this kind of growth, something that may not be possible for your startup. Even if you don't have the resources for industrial-scale guest blogging, it's a must-have in your marketing mix. Just use search strings in Google like: keyword + "write for us" in order to find sites in your vertical that openly accept guest posts.3. Amaze With Infographics If you're on a tight budget, infographics can hook you with you the marketing ROI you're looking for. Neil Patel notes that the 47 infographics that he published for his startup, KISSMetrics brought him more than 2 million visitors and 40,000 backlinks. The best part? Each infographic only set him back $600 on average. If you don't have a design person on your team that can crank out infographics, consider hiring a freelance graphic designer at sites like Elance or Odesk.If you provide the data, you can usually snag an attractive infographic for less than $400. Once it's done, post it on your company's blog and send it to top blogs in your industry. If it's great, they'll usually happily post it on their site (with a link back to you of course!). 4. Leverage Local PR The old business adage "go where they ain't" applies to PR-focused SEO as well. Every startup on Earth is gunning for a link on the Huffington Post. But the same can't be said for local newspaper websites like the Lafayette Courier and the Providence Journal. Despite their humble locations, these newspaper websites often pack serious SEO authority. Unlike multinational heavyweights, local newspapers typically have a small staff of beat writers they're typically easier to build relationships with. This means that you don't have to join the screaming masses at HARO to get some press attention. And because these local newspapers are on extremely tight budgets, they're usually open to free content in the form of op-ed pieces written by local business owners like you. Be sure and visit our small business news site.