Final Lap: Good Web Marketing Reads for the Week Ending Oct. 2

I’ve been a bit busy this week working on my stand-up comedy routine in the office. It seems the ratio of employees to headphones has reached a full 1:1. Not sure I understand why. I’m funny, right?

Anyhoo… my personal life somehow got in the way of the professional this week, and we all know that that means. It means I have to phone in this week’s final lap. Go ahead and insert your own thoughts below, accordingly.

[Snarky comment], [Star Trek], [Star Wars], [Firefly], [Battlestar Galactica], [clever pun]

That’s it for me. I’ve got some new stand-up to write. Speaking of, did you hear the one about the government that balances its budget and lives within its means? No? Yeah, me neither. 

Here is what the rest of the Pit Crew have been reading this week:

• Perspective Matters In B2B Website Content by Andrea Harris
  Take an honest look at your website content. If you see far more instances of “we” rather than “you,” you’re missing the opportunity to share how your products or services will impact your customers. Andrea gives a great example of how a few simple edits can make all the difference in helping your content to potentially convert, rather than prompting visitors to leave your site all together.
• Facebook Link Thumbnail Dimensions [Reference] by Jon Loomer
  Facebook recently updated the way it displays link posts by providing a much larger thumbnail image. To make the most of this new change, follow Jon’s guidelines for creating images that are perfect size. This will allow your images to have more of an impact and you can avoid unfortunate cropping issues.
• 5 Things We’ve Learned from Google’s New War on Links, by Simon Penson
  Penson admits this isn’t a scientific study, but rather statistics he has garnered from his own experience. We’re OK with that. He gives some excellent insights into the state of links – but don’t worry, links won’t be shutting down. Annalisa, we’re still expecting you to show up for work. Find out what effects Penson noticed with exact match anchor text links, in addition to his thoughts on why you could be experiencing partial penalties and what other factors are being taken into consideration in search ranking results.
• The Single Best Actionable SEO Recommendation, by Tadeusz Szewczyk
  While “SEO success consists of a plenitude of small steps to reach your goal,” helping your peers without expecting anything in return, is the most actionable approach. Tad tells you why and how to you’ll want to apply this approach to your SEO efforts.
• Are You Setting The Right Link Building Expectations, by Casie Gillette
  This post is geared towards those who offer link building services. Cassie explains the different ways to sell link building and best practices within those approaches. If you’re an agency or consultant, this is a must read!
• What Is Google Hummingbird, How Does It Work & Does It Change SEO?
  Some say Hummbingird doesn’t change SEO. This is a different take on that.
• Google’s Hummingbird Takes Flight: SEOs Give Insight On Google’s New Algorithm by @AmyGesenhues
  The latest Google algorithm replacement has got a lot of people wondering what this means. This explains it.
• Blogger Outreach – What Do They Think About SEOs? by @ dsottimano
  Great survey data to bloggers about SEO strategies that involve asking Bloggers for links.
• 8 Reasons to Use Buyer Personas to Guide Your Marketing by @EmilyWinsauer
  We love using personas to target your content. If you don’t know who you’re targeting, how do you know you’re writing what works for them?
• How to optimise your images for SEO by Richard Yeo
  Optimizing for images isn’t just about Google image search. Social images are big. And important!
• Google AdWords Remarketing Lists For Search Ads (RLSA): The Ultimate Guide, by Lisa Raehsler
  This new feature of AdWords allows you to reach web users who have visited your site before and are now using search for the same or similar products, services or subjects. This expands your ability to your messaging and control your ad placement with these users. Lisa breaks all of the important details down for you.