diasharma: The Best Small Business Marketing News & Blog Posts of the Week ...

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

The Best Small Business Marketing News & Blog Posts of the Week ...

This post is meant to be helpful for all levels of SEO expertise. You can also find DIYSEO posts classified by level of expertise on the following pages:

With only a few days before Christmas, everyone is rushing to finish up before starting their holidays, but that?s no excuse to miss out on this week?s best posts and news items. Let?s get started, shall we? (And happy holidays to you and yours.)

Beginner SEO and Marketing

Marketing Manual ? Marketing Plan Guide ? Small Business Marketing Plans.com gave readers a huge present. They published a number of simple templates to help you get your business off the ground successfully. If you like this template, you might also want to check out the one they did on marketing strategies.

Content Marketing: A Beginning Checklist ? And while we?re on the topic of checklists, try this one out from V3. (And if you?ve already started your content marketing, read it anyway, since it?s filled with some powerful tips.)

Here?s Why I Think Foursquare Can be a Major Local Search Player ? A short time ago, we mentioned some of the changes Foursquare made to its platform. We wondered if they were a good thing. Well, according to Matt McGee, those changes may be ideal for the platform, search engines, users and businesses.

Intermediate SEO, Marketing & Business Tips

5 Trends in Coupon Marketing for 2013 ? If you?re in need of some fresh, new marketing ideas, you may want to have a look at some of the ideas Shashi Bellamkonda shared with Small Business Trends? readers. You might also want to consider Square Mobile Gift Cards.

5 Reasons Why Companies Are Challenged by Content Creation & How to Fix ? While creating content seems simple at first, anyone who has done it for any length of time will tell you that looks can be deceiving. Lee Odden looked at why content creation can be so hard and what you can do about it. Advanced SEO, Marketing & Business Links

What Job Are Your Customers Hiring Your Products to Perform? ? Having trouble marketing your products or creating content for them? You might be looking at them the wrong way. If so, this video crowdSPRING covered this week will be a huge help.

Marketing Data: Using Predictive Analytics to Make Sense of Big Data ? Data itself is useless. It?s how you use it that matters, and predictive analytics has the potential to make big changes in how you do business (and how you see the role of your company in the lives of your customers).

Great Posts Published This Week Everyone Should Check Out

Nielsen Report Shows Explosive Pinterest Growth? V3 looked at Nielsen?s State of the Media: Social Media Report 2012 this week. The findings aren?t exactly a surprise, but you might find some of the other findings and information in the report helpful when planning your 2013 social media campaign. Instagram created huge waves this week when it tweaked its terms of service and the blogosphere had plenty to say on the subject:

Apple Finally Allows Google Maps to Return to iOS ? If Apple Maps made you grit your teeth, you can rejoice in this latest news from Apple. It?s another reason you should be appearing in Google Maps if you have a brick and mortar business.

Google Forces Raven Tools to Kill Off Ranking Tool ? Big news in the SEO industry this week came from Raven International Marketing Tools. They had to kill their popular rank tool. They aren?t (and won?t be) the only tool provider that will need to make this choice, either. You can learn more about the situation on iNeedHits.

November Search Share: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ? November?s search share numbers gave Bing an early Christmas gift. (And in case you?re interested, Google released its list of top searches and trends for 2012 this week.)

Google Increases Transparency Around Click Fraud ? Google also announced this week that it will be offering Adsense users a new method of reporting click fraud. It will also provide users with additional information about the fraud and how to fix it.