Asking the right questions about search engine marketing requires an examination of your thought process. On a lighter note, take a step back with me and consider a few of the quirks of our SEO culture.

If you missed the previous post check out, Are You Asking The Right SEO Questions

I’m sure in your day to day link building you have come across a variety of these ideas. Feel free to comment with your unique SEO thoughts.

Are You Asking The Right SEO Questions – Part II is a post by SEO expert Nelson Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

The questions you ask affect the answers you get. Simply wording your questions differently with clarity and insight can change their purpose. Are you asking the right SEO questions? Have you lost sight of what is really important in your SEO?

The following “Question Graphic” asks direct questions about important characteristics of search engine optimization.

This video was part of the inspiration for the “Question Graphic.”

Stay tuned for next week’s post, Questions We All Wonder But Never Think To Ask.

Are You Asking The Right SEO Questions? Part 1 is a post by SEO expert Nelson Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Twitter arrived on the scene July of 2006. As of 2011 it has more than 200 million users and 1.6 billion tweets per day. It sure has grown. But can Twitter sustain its growth and weather the storm of the web and its own users?

Twitter has a number of powerful benefits including: networking, branding, research and promotion. Yet even with the golden eggs, there are many frustrations, irritations and problems.

Twitter has shown signs of Myspace #failure such as:

• Twitter and Myspace both allow people to be anonymous.
• To grab attention many profiles are becoming lewd. It’s apparent if you check any “follow back” hashtag such as #ifollowback you see every other profile picture is a scantily dressed woman.
• Both have had very fast growth. (Crash and trash?)
• Both allow people to customize their pages. (See images below)
• Quantity of followers is valued over quality of relationships. The quality of the relationship and communication (purpose of Twitter) can be lost due to the measurable number of followers.
• Many fake profiles. According to Matt Burns, “…You have Tina Fey, who has publicly acknowledged it’s not her on Twitter, yet her fake account currently has over 216,000 followers.”

As Jeremy Schoemaker wrote, “It’s like someone emailed all •*¨¨*•-:¦:-•*MySpAcE UsErS AnD tOlD ThEm ThEy CaN AnNoy PeOpLe In ReAl TiMe•*¨¨*•-:¦:-•*”

Twitter has a number of other problems:

• Many programs are available to automate thousands of Twitter accounts. How many of your followers are bots?
• Twitter users are subject to large amounts of spammed “bird turd” from followers, direct messages and trending topics.
• Twitter’s source of revenue is still being tapped. Recently Twitter announced promoted Tweets, advertisements which Twitter described this way: “…tweets may be visible within a user’s timeline if that user follows the advertiser.”
• Even when following only 500 people there is no way to keep up with the loads of information. Tweet platforms are needed to find relevant information.

With its rapid rise, hype and previously mentioned issues, Twitter could pop the social media marketing bubble like web companies killed the 2001 dotcom era.

But Twitter isn’t going away. Even with its annoyances, Twitter should have no problem sustaining its growth (that is unless a better birdy platform comes along). Just as the telegraph was replaced by the telephone because of better service, the demise of Myspace was due to the superior platform of Facebook.

For now, tweet away and feel free to follow me.

Is Twitter Myspacing? is a post by SEO expert Nelson Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Can you forecast 2011’s Web changes? What could be expected from Google, Bing, and Facebook? To succeed online, you should have a fair idea of technologies, trends, and events that will alter how we do things.

Predictions are closely related to uncertainty, and should be taken with a big grain of salt. After coming across a few 2011 SEO prediction posts, I started to see some similarities. In hopes of collaborating with a mass of minds, I put together the most commonly discussed trends below.

To get a better idea of what 2011 holds, we’d like your opinion to count, too. So vote here ——————->>>

11 Most Most Predicted Online Trends for 2011:

1. Social will become more integrated into search

As the Web is humming with Facebook and Twitter comments, what are people saying about your company and products? We’ve already seen social results show in the search engine results pages, but many predict larger algorithmic changes around social. Matt Lawson of SearchEngineLand said, “This new, more social search algorithm will allow users to rate search results or even websites, and have user ‘likes’ factored into ranking algorithms.”

Google Trends indicates the growth of specific search queries online, including “what is social media,” “what is SEO,” “twitter management,” “social media management.” All four of these queries have seen a steady growth in the last couple of years.

2. Rise in mobile marketing

Mobile usage has increased globally so quickly in the last few years that many marketers are still trying to catch up. Must SEO be customized for the 2×3-inch screen? At the rate mobile apps are growing, do mobile apps need their own form of optimization?

3. Search engines improve search results with a more sophisticated algorithm

Last year Google gave us Google Instant and Google Preview. The front end is nicer so what is to be expected with the back end? With the onslaught of spamming, black hat and nonsense article automation, the search engines must keep providing great results. Could the search engines have something new that will affect your rankings?

4. Better SEO tools, including rank monitoring

SEO used to be shoot from the hip, yet in recent years, to rank it takes a lot more. SEO requires a better analytics data analysis and a strategic plan. Rand Fishkin said, “In 2011, I see several SEO software companies growing to critical mass based on the market’s demand.” Will you need software to keep up?

5. HTML 5 makes viewing better over multiple platforms

Browser compatibility will continue to improve to allow more HTML5-driven websites. With the use of more specific tags HTML5 may improve relevancy and indexation.

6. Social media takes a new role

We have watched it grow and its going to continue. Social media is here to stay but will it’s influence grow or plateau among marketers? “Since SEO is now being affected by Twitter and Facebook, data is going to have to include concise social media metrics. In addition, the applications that collect this data will need to evolve,” said Dr. Host Joepen.

7. SEO will become more automated

Where there is a will there is a way, and often that way must cost less to meet the will. Matt Lawson said, ”Only three things are certain in a search marketer’s life: death, taxes, and rising CPC’s (cost-per-click). To combat this cost increase, marketers will have to double down on match type and negative keyword management, creative testing and campaign structure optimization to lower costs and increase conversion rates.” Can, and will, SEO become a manufactured product?

8. Local search optimization grows rapidly

Finding your barber, grocer, and contractor online will be just one query away. This trend is already growing with the business card of your company mapped to your location. Will this pick up for the masses? “This changes the rule so that now the site that has the most attractive/relevant preview will generate the higher number of clicks, so adding in location-based keyword analysis is going to become even more important,” said Marina Greenwood of ActivaPR.

9. SMO (social media optimization) will greatly expand as a market industry

As social media has been growing, so has the term ‘SMO’ or social media optimization. Branding and marketing tactics will alter and become more focused on social marketing. Dr. Host Joepen says, “Companies and agencies that will come out ahead of the game are the ones that start leveraging social media for scalable link-building efforts.” Google Trends shows ‘Social Media Optimization’ with small beginnings starting early 2010. Will SMO be to FaceBook as SEO is to Google?

10. Trust will become more important for users — “Trustbait”

As SEO has become more sophisticated, “organizations will need to develop links from more ‘neutral’ sites such as news portals or by appearing in a search engine’s own news stream”(Marina Greenwood). As people have been looking to protect their online identities, they have also looked for the trusted news media sources. To get and keep search rankings, is it going to require even more quality ‘Link bait’ than previous years? Something PR firms have been doing for years.

11. Bing-Facebook partnership will change how we search

The annoyance of Facebook search was that when a company wasn’t listed, you had to leave the site to find the company. Now that Bing’s results are listed on Facebook, the social media and search integration begins. “This partnership has the potential of making Facebook an individual’s (and a corporation’s) go-to social network hub AND search engine,” said Marina Greenwood. Andrew Redfern of Hitsearchlimited “Facebook listings will start to appear in more “interesting” places, while impressions and “like” data will be put to good use in its keyword ranking mechanism.” Since the news came out, search for ‘bing facebook’ has been on a dramatic rise. Could this be the game changer for online search?

SEO has been trending up since Google’s recording began.

Summary of 2011 Online Marketing Predictions — Cast Your Vote! is a post by SEO expert Nelson Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Before the search engine, the Internet was an untamed territory of disorder and difficult navigation. Google civilized the Web, making information discoverable, by giving links tremendous value. Like “word of mouth,” links pass merit and should signify quality, utility, or popularity. As links denote significance, they themselves appreciate in value due to demand.

Links are like Crude Oil

Links are the crude oil of the Web — they are difficult to find and they have great worth. The more quality links you have, the better you’ll rank. As you know, not all links are equal. Oil barons must go to greater depths and use more resources to drill oil-rich wells. Similarly, quality link building can require a great deal of time, difficulty, or creativity to find. Here are 7 types of links that can make or break your SEO:

1. Automated Spam

Derived of duplicate, nonsense, no purpose, and time wasting content. Crawlers and Web users recognize its uselessness and quickly move on. Its value to the Internet is like a paper boat floating on the surface of the water. Sure it’s easy to setup but it will be the eel that stings you in the end.

2. Paid Links

Search engines recognize peddled links. If paid links were valued to PageRank, the Web would end up being bought by the highest bidder. Paid links are a really costly pebble to skip on the surface of the water. Go here to report a paid link to Google

3. Reciprocal Links

Search engines quickly picked up the notion and devalued the “You scratch my back, I will scratch your back” links. While there may be a time and place for these types of links, use them in moderation.

4. Directory Links

Once again search engines give little value to heavy burdened link sites. Some category specific and paid directories such as DMOZ and Yahoo can actually pass some crude juice.

5. Article Posts

Now we are getting to some depth. Quality content with contextual links have value to users therefore search engines are more apt to pass rank. Tap that pipe and you may actually have a bit of a geyser.

6. Widgets and Badges

A quality website widget or tool will inherently bring in more links. If your widget adds value through functionality or creativity, it can be a great source of natural link building. Breach true depths and you’ll have quality links flowing to you.

7. Quality, Unique Content

The true essence of the internet is unique, creative, useful, or beautiful content. If your content is truly unique you will naturally receive backlinks simply out of merit. Tap that well and you’ll have more than liquid gold.

7 Crude Links — If Link Building Was Oil Drilling (Infographic) is a post by SEO expert Nelson Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.