Over the past couple years, the pagination of content has become a popular tactic. For those of you who don't keep up with asinine marketing terms, pagination in this context just means spreading your content out over multiple pages. This is usually done to increase views and lower bounce rates, both of which are great things for the advertisers on your page, and your own bottom line. It's a little annoying, but it does have its uses, especially with longer content or listed items. If you want to implement some pagination domination as part of your Business SEO, more power to you, just make sure you're going about it the right way.

According to Google, there are three ways to paginate content and maintain all your link juice:

1. Do nothing. Seriously, Google sees paginated content all the time and they have a pretty good grasp on it. Still, if  you want more control, you can look at steps 2 and 3.

2. Create a canonical View All page. In most cases, all the paginated content could conceivably be listed on one main View All page. If you can, create this View All page and use rel="canonical" on all of the individual pages to indicate the View All version is the one that should be indexed.

3. Use Next and Prev links. This is the most labor intensive method but it's great for lists that you just don't want to break up. Essentially, you use the tags rel="next" and rel="prev" to create a logical sequence of pages, the first of which will be most likely to be indexed. On each page of the list, include the "next" tag with a link pointing at the next page, and do the same with the "prev" tag, showing Google a clear ordered list.

Honestly, any of these methods will probably serve you just fine. The only thing we'd advise is think about WHY you're paginating content to begin with. Sure, your views may go up and your bounce rate may go down, but how many people are you driving away with annoying content delivery?

Original post about paginating content can be found on Wikimotive's blog titled "Pagination Domination."

Adam Orth is one of the creative directors at Microsoft studios. He's not the top of the chain, but he IS important, and he should be aware that his words have weight. Unfortunately (for Microsoft and his own career) he performed a major faux pas on Twitter last night. Let's take a look at what he did and investigate how your small business SEO can learn from the mistakes of one of the biggest companies in the world.

The controversy began when Adam took to Twitter to discuss the next iteration of the Xbox. There were rumors flying that the machine would require an always-on internet connection, the same always-on philosophy that resulted in a lot of initial strife for recent games like Diablo III and Sim City. While Adam didn't confirm or deny the always-on rumors, he was sure to be as condescending as possible to his fans and followers. Check out this sample of Tweets from his feed yesterday:

Somehow, Adam Orth thought it would be a good idea to argue with the general public. If there's one lesson to take away here, it's that you NEVER ARGUE WITH THE PUBLIC. Even if you think you're right, even if you know they're wrong, you still have to remember those basic tenants of customers service and, at worst, walk away with a smile.

 

I'm willing to be charitable and entertain the idea that this entire exchange was meant to be tongue in cheek. Even if that's the case, it still shows a stunning lack of common sense. You'd think the creative director for a huge company like Microsoft would understand that you can't hear sarcasm online. You also can't hear inflection or laughs or any of the other social indicators we use to show that we're just playing around.

 

We'll watch this story and see how it plays out as more people hear about it, but the backlash against Microsoft and Orth is already intense, with two separate posts making the front page of Reddit's /r/gaming. In case you're wondering, /r/gaming is a subreddit (a forum, essentially) that has nearly three MILLION subscribers (and is seen by large amounts of non-subscribers), each and every one of whom is in the target audience for Microsoft's new console. So, what's the over-under on days until old Orthy gets the axe?

Original post about Adam Ortho can be found on Wikimotive's blog titled, "Adam Orth, Microsoft Creative Director, Bombs on Twitter."

In a world where content is next to cleanliness (and cleanliness is in fairly close proximity to godliness) it's fallen on a lot of digital marketers to start writing. For some of us, this hasn't been much of a chore. We delight in putting our thoughts down on the page and sending them out for (a very, very small portion of) the world to read. Other marketers aren't such big fans. They either outsource their writing or do it themselves but do a half-assed job of it. If you fall into that category, you gotta clean it up, because when it comes to your business SEO, it should be full-assed or nothing.

 How do you find inspiration?

There are a lot of places you can look for inspiration for your writing, but most writing advice for marketing online is about where to find topics and subject matter. Today, I want to share a place that will help hone your craft so that you're able to write your content full-assed, every time.

So where do I go?

Have you heard of Reddit? If you're a digital marketer (or a human being that hangs out online), you probably have. Essentially, it's a giant forum system for pretty much every topic under the sun.

These topics are divided up into very specific "subreddits," and there are so many users that you can find a subreddit for pretty much anything you put your mind to. You can even combine subreddits into one giant feed to effectively browse a multitude of topics all on one screen, which is what I did for you. The link in this sentence will bring you to a page filled with all the best writing subreddits.

Every post won't be immediately applicable to you, but there is SO MUCH content you're bound to find something that gives your own writing a boost. You may feel like the fiction and poetry content will do nothing for you, but give it a chance. Having a sense of narrative structure or aesthetic language can only help your writing become more effective, no matter what you're writing about.

Original post about Reddit Writing can be found on Wikimotive's blog titled, "Writing Reddit."

Remember the Human Rights Campaign's pink equal sign that we wrote about last week? Well, it's died down a little, but it's still going pretty strong. It seemed nearly everyone on Facebook had at least one friend change their profile picture, but the evidence was anecdotal...until now. Facebook has released some interesting stats talking about the spread of the campaign, and there are some important lessons to take away for low cost SEO services wondering about the value of social media. Obviously, millions of Facebook users change their profile picture on any given day, but 120% more than average changed their profile picture on the 26th,  the day the Human Rights Campaign issued their message urging users to switch to the pink equal sign. Here is the graph released by Facebook showing the swing, the dotted line towards the right indicates when the Human Rights Campaign made their post:   As you can see, there is an undeniable uptick in changes. Correlation doesn't always mean causation, but in this case I think we can assume that one lead to the other. Thanks to Facebook's incredible analytics, we also get information about the age of the people changing their photos. In the graph below, the left-hand image shows us the amount of profile photo changes on the 26th (red) over the amount of changes the week before (black). On the right, you see the increase in percent of users changing, again by age:   Finally, in the map we posted at the top of this article, you can see where the most people changed. The darker the color, the more people who changed their profile picture in that area. The data is about what you'd expect, with more conservative areas being pale and liberal areas being dark. The interesting thing about the map from a marketing standpoint is just how small an area Facebook can target when displaying this kind of data. Honestly, we know they can go even deeper, making a map with data down the the city level. The only reason they didn't is probably because such a map would be a mess to look at. It's good of Facebook to release this kind of data to the public, and it truly illustrates what a powerful platform the social network has become. Also, whether or not you agree with the Human Rights Campaign, you can't deny their success. To have an impact so strong that it changes the entire country's stats in a meaningful way is an achievement most movements (and advertisers!) can only dream of. Original post about the Human Rights Campaign can be found on Wikimotive's blog titled, "Measuring the Success of the Human Rights Campaign."

Do you know who the author of your blog is? Well, it's mostly likely  you (or a team of handsome ghostwriters cleverly disguised as you), and if you are truly invested in a successful SEO strategy, you're blogging every single day, and even the occasional wild and crazy night. It's easy to get caught up in the flashy blogger lifestyle; the fast women, the loose cars, it all comes with the territory. Sometimes though, you have to slow it down a bit. You have to stop and ask yourself, "As an author, am I getting all  the credit I deserve?" Let us here at Wikimotive, your friendly and affordable SEO company, help you answer that.

Can you see what I'm setting up here? We're going to talk about Google authorship. It's becoming an important part of both SEO and click-through rates, so you best be on point. The easiest way to claim authorship is through the beautiful union of Google and Google+ (almost like they designed it that way to bolster a failing social network or something). When you verify your authorship with Google, you'll increase your rankings with the ever more valuable "author authority" and you'll be given a headshot next to your pieces (articles, blogs, etc) that show up in search results. Having your (adjective) face beaming up from amongst the other, authorless pieces will make you stand out, and that's something you can take right to the bank.

Did I sell you on authorship? Are you ready to move from a lowly author to a proud Google endorsed "AUTHOR"!? If not, may God have mercy on your soul.

Here's how you set it up:

1. Create a Google+ account (or just login if you already have one, it's not rocket science) and make sure your profile picture is a great shot of that smiling face. Select a picture that says, "I'm an authority on the topic at hand, but I know how to have fun too! Let's hang out, maybe read a few blogs, get a bottle of wine and just see where the night takes us..."

2. Adjust your blog settings so that it's displaying a byline under all of your pieces. In case you haven't heard that term, a byline is just the little bit where it says "By Max Power" or whatever your name is.

2.5. Ensure your byline and Google+ name are an EXACT MATCH! This is very important. If your byline is "Max Power" but your Google+ account is "Maxwell J. Power" then you'll gum up the works and Google may not be able to figure out  you're the author.

3.  Once you finish the steps above, all that's left to do is tell Google you’re the author. You can find the link to the page here. If for whatever reason you can’t get an email from your own domain (you really should!) you can find alternate instructions here!

Once this is all set up, you may have to wait a day or two to see the effects. Before long though, you'll be seeing yourself pop up as the author in search results, complete with headshot. You're pretty much internet-famous now, so don't freak out when you get recognized on the street and people want you to sign the printout of your "100 Best TPS Reports" article. Just be sure to always have a felt-tipped pen handy, smile big in the photo, and don't let the paparazzi catch you shoplifting felt-tipped pens.

You'll do just fine.  

Original post about Google authorship can be found on Wikimotive's blog titled, "Be an Internet Celebrity;  Claim Your Google Authorship" by Daniel Hinds.

Thor is a god, specifically, he's the thunder god, super specifically, he's the Norse god of thunder, storms, and beating the pulp out of things with his magic hammer, Mjolnir (just imagine I did the umlaut on the o). Thor is an unruly god, short on temper and long on power. When he approached, you never knew for sure if you were getting the clenched fist or the open palm (though smart money was on the first), and small business SEO services across the world have come to view Google in pretty much the same way.

The latest victim on Google's mighty hammer are websites that have manipulative link profiles. For those of you who don't know, manipulative links are any links that aren't natural and thus are trying to game, or manipulate, the system. Bought links from a link farm? Spamming forums? Anchor text too spot on? Get ready for the hammer, baby.

A new report from Portent, a marketing agency in sunny Seattle, shows the pattern of Google's Penguin updates and their standard on bad links. Essentially, sites used to be able to have 80% spammy links and still rank. In spring of 2012, that was cut down to 65%. In October, Google began to punish sites that had as low as 50% spammy links. The following graph is from their report:

Remember, these aren't sites that got penalties. These are sites that were analyzed by an algorithm and then plummeted in the rankings. October was the last big change, but now that Penguin is an ongoing part of Google's algorithm, we can assume this number will continue to gradually drop over time. Soon enough, having manipulative spammy links in ANY quantity will draw the ire of Thor and his mighty hammer.

What can you do? Fix your bad links! Get rid of the forum spam, change up your anchor text to make it more organic, use the disavow tool if they aren't under your direct control, but just get rid of them. If you want to chance it and wait until your rankings start to slip before you make a move, that's your prerogative. By all means, wait for the hammer before changing anything. More room at the top for the rest of us.   (All superhero pictures belong to Marvel and DC comics, except the bottom one looks like a totally rad crossover that now I have to buy.)

Original post on Google's Bans can be found on Wikimotive's blog titled, "Google the Thunder God" by Daniel Hinds.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has released their newest .com disclosure guidelines, the first new release since the year 2000. It takes them a long, long time to update this document, and they never really say anything all that groundbreaking. The general message is that the same guidelines that apple to traditional advertising mediums apply to the net, so your affordable SEO company is safe. There is only one piece of really noticeable news that jumped out to people so far, and that pertains to Twitter. Apparently, the FTC is sick of the paid, viral ads on Twitter. You see celebrities (or anyone with a lot of followers) mention products a lot, and it can be difficult to know what they actually like and what they're being paid to endorse.  The new rule puts an end to this, requiring Twitter users to be very clear about what is a paid or "sponsored" Tweet. As an example of the changes, look at this sponsored Tweet the FTC gives as an example:

That link goes to the product page, and the followers of the account have no idea if this was a genuin success or a paid story. This kind of Tweet is now illegal. For a sponsored story to be allowed, it must contain two things: the statement indicating it's an advertisement, and the realistic expectations of the product. The FTC took the same Tweet from above and applied these new rules:

The FTC understands that Tweets are only 140 characters long, so they allow shortcuts. A simple "Ad:" is enough to address it being an advertisement, and the "typical loss" is enough to set realistic expectations. That's a legal paid Tweet. There are additional rules, in case people try and circumvent these methods. You AREN'T allowed to send out a paid Tweet, and then follow up with the disclaimer and advertisement notice. It all must be in the same 140 characters.

You also aren't allowed to use the "#spon" tag, because the FTC has decided that it's too confusing, not enough people understand that it means sponsored.

Keep in mind these new rules apply to any short-form digital marketing, Twitter is just the one it applies to most. On sites like Facebook (where you aren't limited to a certain amount of characters) you can just include the advertisement disclaimer underneath the ad itself. So keep these rules in mind going forward, and make sure you don't get yourself in trouble by Tweeting the wrong way!

Check out the FTC document on .com disclosers here.

Original post about Twitter advertising can be found on Wikimotive's blog under the title, "Some Advertising Tweets Now Illegal!" by Zach Billings.

Successful marketing requires the ability to track and analyze and deduce, it's what makes the industry exciting. Businesses are always clamoring for more analytics tools from the services they use, and now Pinterest is delivering an interesting new tool, sure to be a boon for any SEO company smart enough to invest in social media. The new tool is called Pinterest Web Analytics, and it allows people who have verified business websites on their profile to track things such as repins, pin views, visitors, and clicks. This allows businesses to easily see which content is falling flat and which content is really succeeding with their fanbase. Armed with this information, there is no reason you can't have a lot more success with your pinning efforts!

"Bloggers, businesses, and organizations often ask us, 'What are people pinning from my websites?'" Pinterest Software Engineer Tao Tao writes in a blog post announcing the tool. "These website owners help create the content on Pinterest and we wanted to help them understand which pieces of content people find most interesting."

To start using Pinterest analytics, all you need to do is follow these quick four steps.

1.  Ensure you have a verified website
2.  Hover over your "Profile" menu and select "Switch to the New Look"
3. Go to the top right menu and select "Analytics"
4.  Profit!!!!

So go ahead any try out the new analytics tool. It may not be as powerful as Facebook's, but it's a big step in the right direction. We can only hope that social media sites continue to give us the analytics data that allows us to tailor our content to what people like, making the social experience more pleasant for everyone! Original post about Pinterest marketing can be found on Wikimotive's blog titled "Pinterest Offering New Analytics" by Zach Billings.

Are you looking to go viral today? Do you want the magic formula, the secret spell, that alchemical reaction that will transform your tired old content into a vibrant viral rocket, blasting into the social-sphere of your target audience and sending them over the moon with purchasing-joy? Well...too bad. Buck up buttercup, because contrary to what many of the affordable SEO companies out there are saying, there simply isn't a viral shortcut.

(Sorry to disappoint you, but anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or an idiot. They can choose which, I'm generous that way.)

The Harlem Shake (Con los terroristas!) is responsible for the newest round of asinine viral video advice. Businesses from every sector are jumping on the bandwagon, and bloggers from every corner are giving tips on how to create the next trend that takes off like the Harlem Shake meme did. Invariably and inevitably, these wizards (he said derisively) suggest the following ingredients for a perfect viral video:

• Simple!
• Short!
• Funny!

It's that easy guys! All you have to do is make a short, simple video that a broad swath of the internet finds hilarious. How hard can it be? Never mind that millions of people on the internet are trying to produce memorable videos every SINGLE day with no success, they didn't have the three keys. YOU DO! GO GIVE IT A TRY!

I'll wait.

Alright, so now that you've tried and failed, lets look at why this oft given advice isn't worth the digital paper it's e-printed on. Telling someone to elicit an emotion, be it humor or sadness or wonder, isn't actually advice at all. In fact, it's one of the hardest things in the world to do on demand. People who can reliably elicit powerful responses are already doing it, and they're either wealthy or famous or both.

The fact is, people inherently know that successful viral videos produce a gut response (usually humor), and telling them to make a video that's funny is a waste of everyone's time. In reality, viral videos require a perfect storm of timing, exposure, and some x-factor that can't be quantified. If they could be created in a lab, don't you think television commercials would be a lot more interesting?

So, next time you see someone offering advice on how to create a viral video, ask to see the last viral video THEY made. When they can't produce one, feel free to call them a knucklehead. Other insults work too, but that one is on the house.

Check out the original post about viral content on Wikimotive's blog titled, "The 'Go Viral Today' Myth" by Daniel Hinds.

Everyone knows you shouldn't have a spammy site, but just what the heck does "spammy" even mean? We know Google doesn't like it, but it's not as though the word has a hard and fast definition (at least not one pertaining to SEO). Google realizes this, and they have recently put up a new page that illustrates business SEO websites that they have flagged as "spam"  so that you have a metric when building your own site.

The page illustrates how they identify spam, the types of spam, and how they take action against it. Most of the work is done by a combination of the Google algorithms and physical, personal review. Obviously the personelle time is limited, but the algoritm time is not. This is the problem that many spammers are having. They used to be able to get away with it by flying under the radar, a sort of "they can't catch us all!" mentality. Now, the algorithm has grown so sophisticated that Google CAN catch them all, or at least enough of them to dissuade the rest.

So do yourself a favor and check out Google's examples of spam, but don't let them scare you away from SEO in its entirety. There is still plenty of room for honest SEO done with a white hat on. Look at what Google penalizes, and make sure your site isn't guilty of any of the same violations. If you're unsure, you can always contact us and we'll gladly give your site a quick free evaluation for best practices.

Original post about Google Spam can be found on Wikimotive's blog titled, "Google Gives Live Examples of Spam."