There was a lot of activity this week in various areas – and that means lots of things to read. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered with the articles I found relevant during the week of March 12-16, 2012 covering such topics as analytics, SEO, marketing, customer service, and the inbound marketing versus nomenclature SEO debate …
Monday
- On Occam’s Razor, Avinash Kaushik drives home the point of avoiding data for data’s sake and looking into finding courses of action based on good analysis of that data: A Big Data Imperative: Driving Big Action
- Frank Reed shared a video showing a portion of a meeting of Google Search engineers on Marketing Pilgrim. It’s a very interesting look into what goes into their processes: Inside a Google Meeting of Search Engineers
- In another Marketing Pilgrim piece, Cynthia Boris asks Is it Over for Location Check-in Apps? I’m not ready to give up on them just yet, but there may be some interesting developments in the near future to encourage more folks to check in.
- Are you a brand ambassador? Yes, you are, any time you represent your company. Chris Bailey points out very well that this includes when you’re recruiting at a job fair: Five Ways You’re Killing Your Employer Brand At Job Fairs
Tuesday
- Crawl errors are now shown differently in Google Webmaster Tools and this Kurt Dresner piece on the Official Google Webmaster Blog has a great overview of the changes: Crawl Errors: The Next Generation
- Dave Peckens shared this piece by Allison Kent-Smith about how to evaluate technical knowledge and train to fill gaps in ad agencies: We’re All Technologists Now: 6 Steps To Retraining and Reinventing Your Creative Talent
- David Meerman Scott has some great advice for those looking for PR and marketing jobs – get active and create content. Check it out on the Web Ink Now Blog: Tough love for marketing and PR job seekers
Wednesday
- Seth Godin has a very good notion as to how to use customer contact with your service reps and call centers as a way to delight and gain advocates at a time when the customer is paying undivided attention to your company: Speaking when they care (reorganizing the economics and attitude of customer service). He makes an excellent point: When someone contacts you with a problem, you don’t have to pay to get their attention – they’re already looking at you.
- On Search Engine Watch, Gareth Owens offers some advice on How to Train an SEO in 5 Days. It’s a pretty good starting point, but you’ll want to customize for your agency or in-house situation.
- On JW on Tech (an MSDN Blog), James Whittaker offers his reasons for leaving Google. While this is only one person’s opinion, it’s good to keep tabs on possible happenings at the search giant: Why I left Google
Thursaday
- There was a bit of buzz going around about this Wall Street Journal piece by Amir Efrati talking about some upcoming changes to Google’s SERPs: Google Gives Search a Refresh. Most of the news consisted of things which has been going around in the SEO community for a while. But this “Semantic Search” certainly bears watching.
- Following up on the WSJ piece, Danny Sullivan has some analysis on the story on Search Engine Land: WSJ Says Big Google Search Changes Coming? Reality Check Time!
- On SEOmoz’s Daily SEO Blog Eppie Vojt shares some analysis on junk results in Google’s SERPs: How Garbage Ranks in the SERPs: a Case Study
Friday
- On Search Engine Roundtable, Barry Schwartz shares some interesting news which Matt Cutts shared at his recent appearance at SXSW: Cutts: Google To Target Overly SEO’ed Sites Within Weeks
- In more Google news, related to the WSJ story linked in Thursday’s links comes this piece by Brent Chaters on Search Engine Journal: The Next Wave Of Google Algorithm Changes
- Internet Explorer has been my least-favorite browser since version 6 was still only a couple years old. Microsoft is trying to show IE 9 is much improved over other version with this interesting video shared by Frank Reed on Marketing Pilgrim: Microsoft’s Curious Plea to Stay with Their Browser. I thought the video was rather well done until the end. You be the judge. Regardless, I won’t be swapping browsers any time soon.
Debate Bonus:
- Rand Fishkin started an interesting discussion on SEOmoz’s Daily SEO Blog regarding the way we term what we do as web marketers, specifically in regards to SEO: The Brand of SEO and the Trend of Inbound Marketing. It’s something I’ve been pondering since November and I think this is a dicussion worth having as we who specialize in web or online marketing look to describe what we do to the world at large.
- As a counterpoint to Rand’s piece, Ian Lurie posted this on his Conversation Marketing Blog: My problem(s) with ‘inbound marketing’. He brings up some good points about tactics versus strategies and that “inbound marketing” is really a set of strategies.
- Over on Search Engine Watch, Andy Betts offers up some good analysis on the issue: Inbound Marketing & SEO – Seize Opportunity or Resist Change
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