WARNING: This week’s Fast Five contains links you may want to bookmark!

Looking for ways to enhance your online reputation? Manage multiple client Google accounts? Sharpen your editorial skills? This week’s Fast Five shares some hard-earned professional wisdom…

1) Is Your business Image Suffering Online? By Dave Thomas                                       This is a great common sense article all business owners should read. The rise of social media and mobile apps has changed the way people communicate online. One unhappy customer, or a disgruntled employee, can harm your online reputation if you’re not careful. To prevent this, Dave shares four easy ways to keep on top of your online business profile.

2) Strategies for Administering Client Google Analytics Accounts by Ben Alvord             This is the kind of nuts-and-bolts post I bookmark and refer back to. Ben takes us through his administration process step-by-step and teaches us how to manage multiple Google accounts without compromising client privacy. Even the comments section is helpful with users adding interesting info on their experiences with managing client accounts.

3) Google Authorship and the Fast Track to Better Rankings: A Case Study by Jeff Sauer Many content producers are excited about Google Authorship and Jeff’s post explains why. I love the way Jeff narrates his own experiences with a new site and what happened when he linked it to Google +. Make sure you read to the end to get Jeff’s great tips on making the most of your site/blog in this new era of Authorship.

And finally, some editorial tips from Copyblogger’s Brian Clark…

4) The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines by Brian Clark                                             The journalist in me loved this one. Remember the 4 U’s? Or the eight words or less rule? Brian says a bit of editorial flair goes along way on Twitter. Writing attention grabbing headlines is not just for our own content though… we can also use it when we retweet. Brian also includes helpful links to other related articles.

5) SEO Copywriting: The Five Essential Elements to Focus On by Brian Clark                   If a client or friend asks you about the dos and don’ts of SEO Copywriting, this would be a great blog post to recommend. Brian gives a quick run-down on SEO generally, followed by five points to focus on for good SEO copywriting. Make sure you read to the end to download Brian’s free 28 page report, if you want more info. Thanks Brian!

Happy reading!

*Image courtesy of Threadless

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There’s no real theme to this week’s Fast Five, except for that which caught my attention… Enjoy!

1) How Do I Find a Good SEO? By Rand Fishkin                                                         Rand’s latest Whiteboard Friday is a good down-to-earth session on how to choose an SEO consultant, who is not only great at what they do, but suits our particular needs. Rand encourages us to spend some time identifying our unique requirements so that the SEO of our choosing can become the “cheese to our macaroni”. I got the feeling the inspiration for this post came from one too many emails asking for his recommendations…. But whatever the reason, I’m glad he posted it.

2) How to Identify an Online Community for Your Business by Mackenzie Fogelson Mackenzie uses great examples in the post, to describe how to build an online community for our business or client (or both). It’s like the first day in a new school, how do you find the people you want to hang out with? And how do you represent yourself once you meet them?

Mackenzie provides a great list to help focus our thinking about brand identity etc. She also provides some helpful tips on how to identify people or companies worthy of following.

3) 3 Scalable Link Building Tactics That Won’t Leave a Footprint by Mathew Green         We all know link building has radically changed in the past 12 months, and with it many opportunities for automation. In this post Mathew shares three great ideas for obtaining links that can be expanded into a sizable campaign, but are still white-hat genuine methods to obtain relevant links.

4) Quick Ways to Choose Better Guest Post Opportunities With Audience and Social Metrics by Adam Thompson                                                                                                I’ve often wondered how to analyse a blog without having access to their Google Analytics info, so this post is a godsend! Adam provides great examples and links to sites like: Blog Social Analyser and SimilarWeb to see how the content, on a blog you may be interested in writing for, is being shared.

And finally for a bit of social media scandal….

5) High Profile Twitter Takeovers: Fact or Fake? By Michelle Stinson Ross               Michelle uses the buzz from this week’s Twitter takeover of Burger King’s account by McDonalds to pass on some healthy advice about maintaining social media account security. Whether a promotional stunt, or an actual hostile hacking, the recent takeover attempts of high profile accounts, by other high profile competitors, is alarming and community managers need to remain on high alert.

Happy reading!

*Image courtesy of Threadless

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For this week’s Fast Five, it’s all about content marketing – how to create, pitch and share your ideas.

1) Apply the Golden Rule to Guest Posting by Kate Morris                                               Kate gives great down-to-earth advice on how to navigate the post-penguin world of outreach via guest blogging. As Google gives more weight to content, it’s important for guest bloggers (and those who hire them), to keep things genuine – especially regarding links.

As a freelance writer myself, I loved the checklist Kate offers for companies who contract work to freelancers.

2) How to Get Your Boss to Care About Content Marketing by Adria Saracino               Adria gives us a step-by-step formula to developing an effective pitch that will convince your boss (or client) that content marketing is the answer to their online business success.

This post is a stand out because Adria’s advice includes how to draw upon solid research, plus the creativity of others (including helpful links to people and resources) and bring it all together in a way that inspires confidence.

3) Visual Storytelling: The Key Weapon to Content Marketing by Jason Cormier          Jason is right: no state-of-the art technology can substitute for state-of-the-heart storytelling. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the story behind it may be worth a million more. It seems to be the human condition that none of us can past a good story.

Jason uses the idea that there are ‘Seven Basic Plots’ when it comes to epic storytelling, and gives us examples of how they have been used by big name brands  to create content that people not only engage with, but are compelled to share.

4) Eight Storytelling Tips to Enhance Your Content Marketing by Arnie Kuenn             Further to the post above, Arnie gives us eight great tips on how to use storytelling fundamentals to develop compelling content.

Though the way we tell stories has changed a great deal from prehistoric times and storytelling is constantly progressing, one thing is for sure: everyone enjoys a great story, and that’s not going to change.

and finally…

5) A Goldmine of Content Resources by Anvil Media Inc                                                   The people at Anvil Media Inc have graciously shared their well-researched and comprehensive list of content-related resources from around the web. Every kind of media is explored – from video to cinemagraphs, blog posts to memes  – it’s all there. This is definitely one to bookmark and refer back to when stumped for ideas.

Happy reading!

*Image courtesy of Threadless

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Yes, it’s that time of the week again! I hope you enjoy this week’s eclectic Fast Five selection.

1) The Evolution of the Use of the Internet – the Italian Case by Gianluca Fiorelli            This well researched piece, written by Italian SEO professional Gianluca Fiorelli, outlines the important changes taking place in European Search. Gianluca includes intriguing graphs throughout to illustrate the overwhelming monopoly of Google and Facebook, the explosion of mobile search and the impact of social media on organic search results. Thanks Gianluca!

2) The Penguin That Taught Me to Eat Humble Pie by Chris Holgate                             Chris shares his personal experience of dealing with Penguin’s impact on his business in this informative yet informal post. Many webmasters will probably relate to the experience of receiving bad SEO advice in good faith and later realising they should have listened to their own gut instincts. Make sure you read to the end to get his ‘nuggets of advice’ – well worth a read.

3) 4 Things New Site Owners Need to Understand About SEO by Nick Stamoulis                I can’t go past a good back-to-basics SEO post. Nick gives a nice clear run-down on what ‘newbies’ need to know about marketing their business online: “These four things aren’t technically action items but more of a mentality a new site owner needs to have when they are ready to start their own SEO campaign.”

4) Elements of Google Plus – Part Six: Ripples by Bria Jordan                                        This is part six in an excellent series of posts by Bria which outline the various aspects of Google Plus, step-by-step. Ripples can be used to track the way content is shared, which is incredibly useful in a post-penguin world. “Ripples can uncover Influencers, targeted subjects or keywords: it’s a perfect research tool to determine what is and isn’t working.”

and finally…

5) Using Google Analytics for Blog Post Timing Insights by Alexander Villamizar              I’ve often wondered what’s the best time of day to publish a blog post or perform site maintenance? Here Alex gives us a step-by-step guide for using Google Analytics to extract hourly organic search trends – very useful to understand the rhythms of a site.

Happy reading!

*Image courtesy of Threadless

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This week’s Fast Five is mostly about the power of mobile search, but there’s also a little something about email marketing and developing good old-fashioned valuable content – just to mix things up.

1) Top Three Inbound Marketing Strategies for Mobile Apps by Robi Ganguly              Waiting at the doctor’s office recently I noticed a lot of us were whiling away the time on our smart phones. According to recent research there are over one billion smart phones out there, and mobile apps are absorbing our attention almost as much as television. Robi’s post is an excellent reminder for online marketers to keep abreast of this explosion of mobile technology.

2) 4 Reasons to Convert Your Facebook Business Profile into a Page by Michelle Stinson Ross                                                                                                                                      As mentioned in the post above – mobile apps mean more people are using social media than ever before, so our Facebook presence needs to be right. I enjoyed Michelle’s no nonsense approach to the topic and it got me thinking about how Facebook is changing the way people can find and share business info online.

3) The SEO of Responsive Web Design by Kristina Kledzik                                          While browsing the web on my smart phone recently I noticed some web sites still aren’t mobile friendly. In this post Kristina outlines how responsive design work to radically increase the reach of your web site.

and now for something slightly different…

4) How Unique Does Content Need to Be to Perform Well in Search Engines? – Whiteboard Friday by Rand Fishkin                                                                                   This post is more than just an explanation on how to avoid duplicate content – it’s about creating and maintaining valuable content. In this post Rand outlines the dos and don’ts of unique content creation.

5) Eight Completely Avoidable Mistakes E-mail Marketers Make by Natalie McCatty       There have been a few posts about email marketing lately, but this one caught my eye because I’ve experienced several of the ‘eight mistakes’ myself. Natalie’s engaging post will no doubt have us all double checking our email marketing copy, to ensure we haven’t unwittingly fallen into any of the traps she describes. Thanks Natalie!

Happy reading!

*Image courtesy of Threadless

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