Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart

From the category archives:

Web Design

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2011

January 5, 2012

It’s my birthday and I have some great news!

In January of 2011, I said that I’d make our Internet Marketing Posts of 2011 subscriber only. And I did. Many loyal readers have checked in on the newsletter throughout 2011 to get both evergreen content, the content that typically embraces these monthly updates, in addition to something completely new, monthly digital trends – the stuff you use for presentations and proposals, for arguing that social media and online marketing does have a firm place in today’s landscape. The newsletter, which was sent within the first week of the month, would include new research findings from surveys conducted by research groups such as the Pew Research Center, new discoveries from a marketing firm’s eye tracking study, or data that was recently culled across a multitude of SEO agency case study reports.

This year, I am pleased to bring back our Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2011 thanks to an excellent sponsor, HubSpot. HubSpot has recently launched a most amazing Marketing Grader tool to help you measure the effectiveness of your website. Please be sure to check it out as it’s one of the best tools I’ve ever seen, and I would be saying that even if they weren’t a sponsor!

This is a preview of Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2011. Read the full post (10021 words, 7 images, estimated 40:05 mins reading time)
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HOW TO: Guide to Performing Website Audits

December 13, 2011

This is a guest post by Harrison Jones.

Onsite optimization of websites is the most important factor in ranking better in search engine results. You can build all the links you want, but if your website isn’t optimized, Googlebot won’t be able to crawl the site properly. Over the past several years, Google and Bing have released guidelines for webmasters to make websites more crawlable. This is a consolidation of all the guidelines released by Google and Bing over the years to improve onsite optimization. Audits should be performed before the launch of any new website design, and at least twice per year to keep up with changes in industry standards.

Canonicalization and URL Structure

www or non-www, that is the question. Rather than wasting your time rehashing this topic, I have written a handy guide that explains URL structure best practices in full. To summarize the article, there should only be one URL used to get to the homepage of your website. Whether or not you choose to use www is your choice. Just make sure there is only one version, and it’s not followed by an index.php, index.html, etc… URLs should contain words only and no numbers or symbols. The words should be separated by dashes instead of spaces or underscores. All words should contain lower case letters. Each URL should contain a keyword phrase, and should be no longer than 5 words in length overall.

This is a preview of HOW TO: Guide to Performing Website Audits. Read the full post (2394 words, 2 images, estimated 9:35 mins reading time)
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Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2010

January 5, 2011

Want more than what you see here? Get the monthly newsletter, new for 2011.

As many of you know, I have an annual tradition of giving back to the community on my birthday, which is why this year is no different. Of course, then, today is my birthday, & it’s a big one. Today, I’m 30.

I started this “best posts” idea 5 years ago & it’s grown huge. 2010 by far was the biggest year yet in the Internet Marketing realm. That’s why this is the biggest post I’ve ever written (with over 10,000 words). In honor of my 30th birthday, I have 300 posts.

Here’s how I do it: I read & review hundreds — thousands — of articles yearly, on all Internet Marketing topics from SEO to social media to general entrepreneurship (new for 2010!), also gathering intelligence via their rankings on top social sites & by stumbling upon new items in my feed reader. Since I can’t read everything written by the Internet Marketing community, I ask my Twitter & Facebook followers for their own recommendations. Based on specific criteria, normally actionable takeaways & evergreen content, I review the content & post it here to share with Techipedia readers & new visitors. The content is typically introductory but occasionally more intermediate/advanced, so there’s a mix that should work for everyone.

This is a preview of Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2010. Read the full post (9658 words, 11 images, estimated 38:38 mins reading time)
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Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009

January 5, 2010

It’s my birthday! And like last year, I have a gift for you.

Every year, I read hundreds (thousands?) of articles on the topic of Internet Marketing, from SEO to social media to web usability and then some. And every year, I hand pick the best articles that I’ve read and compile them in a resource that I hope will last a long time. Here’s my list for 2008. Here’s 2007. Here’s 2006. I painstakingly go through these resources with the hopes that these posts will serve as references for you in years to come. Yes, that’s right. Despite the changing landscape, the articles I list here are typically those that I feel are “timeless” in that they could be referenced in the future and still have utility. These posts are not in response to newsworthy events, nor are they displayed in any particular order. They are strategic guides that hopefully will enhance your internet marketing experiences in the future.

Every year, I can only read so many articles. I try to keep this as exhaustive as possible, but even so, I don’t know every great resource. Like last year, I enlisted in help from my followers on Twitter, many of whom gave me some great posts to add to this list. If you’re looking to be included on 2010′s list, you now know what to do.

This is a preview of Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009. Read the full post (10284 words, 10 images, estimated 41:08 mins reading time)
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Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008

January 5, 2009

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008

Today is my birthday, and I decided to give you all a gift that few of you have been highly anticipating for a few months now. My most popular post on this site — probably by far — was last year’s Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2007 compilation. I spent about 3 days (and nights) on it (without sleep) and I was quite happy with the turnout. This year, I began starting to write this compilation in the first week of December. The collection begins with posts that start in January of 2008 and have been collected and shared in the last 12 months. Like last year, I’ve grouped them into different categories and written short descriptions on each post. There’s no order to the posts; I’ve used my bookmarks and a variety of social sites and peer recommendations to create this list. I hope this year’s list surpasses last year’s. Let me know how I did in the comments. ;)

Here’s how this works: In the Internet Marketing Best Posts “series,” I take posts that are typically timeless — they’re not confined to a specific event or news occurrence — they’re valuable for the long haul in terms of Internet Marketing and creative strategy. Hopefully, you’ll see that these posts are still relevant in a few years down the road.

This is a preview of Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2008. Read the full post (7869 words, 11 images, estimated 31:29 mins reading time)
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