This content has been moved to Best of 2008: SEO Guidance on the Webbiquity blog.

In It Came from Facebook! The Social Media Marketing Challenge that Can't be Ignored, I quoted a few interesting statistics—such as that Facebook is now used by one out of every three people who have Internet access, globally, and that 69% of B2B decision makers use social media for business purposes—to get across the point that companies of all sizes need to figure out how to incorporate social media in their marketing and PR plans. Here's some research on how to do that. MarketingSherpa's 2009 Social Media & PR Benchmark Guide (PDF) provides a wealth of useful statistics and guidance. The publisher defines social media marketing and PR as "the practice of facilitating a dialogue and sharing content between companies, influencers, prospects and customers, using various online platforms including blogs, professional and social networks, video and photo sharing, wikis, forums and related Web 2.0 technologies." (If you parse that, it matches up pretty closely...

This content has been moved to Best of 2008: Web & SEO Copywriting on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: marketing copywriting, writing for the web, SEO copywriting, Jennifer Norene, WebProNews, Doug Caverly, Heather Lloyd-Martin, Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference, Search Engine Land, Galen DeYoung, B2B copywriting, Internet Marketing Blog, Frank Levert, Synonym.com, Rhymer, SiteProNews, Jennifer Horowitz, Copyblogger, Sonia Simone, Search Engine Guide, Stoney deGeyter, Conversation Marketing, Ian Lurie del.icio.us tags: marketing copywriting, writing for the web, SEO copywriting, Jennifer Norene, WebProNews, Doug Caverly, Heather Lloyd-Martin, Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference, Search Engine Land, Galen DeYoung, B2B copywriting, Internet Marketing Blog, Frank Levert, Synonym.com, Rhymer, SiteProNews, Jennifer Horowitz, Copyblogger, Sonia Simone, Search ...

It may seem a little odd to see an article about the best WordPress-related posts on a Blogger blog, but for various reasons the WordPress platform inspires a sort of geeky passion that Google's blogging platform just doesn't. For example, I've never seen a post about "why your blog shouldn't be on WordPress"—though Dharmesh Shah vilified BlogSpot.com with such a piece. So, to help educate WordPress newbies and more experienced hands alike, here are a sampling of the best articles and posts written about WordPress tactics and tools in the last year. 7 Tips When Using WordPress As CMS by Rubiqube Blogger Adrian Diaconescu follows up on his earlier WordPress CMS tutorial with this list of helpful tips for SEO, navigation and design. 11 Top WordPress Plugins Every Blog Should Have by Yoast tweaking websites Internet strategist Joost de Valk details some of his favorite plugins for functions like feed management ( FeedBurner ), rearranging pages ( ...

Several recent studies have put the challenge that social media presents to marketers into stark relief: social media is huge. It's growing at an astounding rate. And most marketers still haven't figured out how to capitalize on it. While there are some social media brand success stories , such as Blendtec and Starbucks on the B2C side, and Sun and IBM in B2B, most companies still struggle with optimizing their social media strategy and implementing tactics and measurement. The model behind traditional, interruption-based advertising was that consumers were provided with entertaining or informative content for free, in exchange for viewing ads. In social media, where viewers are often creating the content, that bargain doesn't hold up. This forces brands to develop new approaches, such as producing entertaining content that is advertising (e.g. Blendtec, Mentos and Diet Coke ); providing information that reflects a company's expertise without directly selling (mos...

This content has been moved to Surveying the Social Media Landscape on the Webbiquity blog.

What are the current best practices in website design? What common design mistakes should you avoid? Where can you find creative new design ideas? Many of last year's best articles and blog posts on the topic of website design were reviewed here in two posts on the best of website design so far in 2008, but to help answer the questions above, here are a few more. 25 Design Best Practices for Your Small Business Web Site by Search Engine Watch Carrie Hill provides a helpful list of website design tips such as installing analytics software right away, using at least 250 words per page whenever possible, keeping contact forms simple, and using H1-6 tags, bold text and text links strategically for SEO. Though targeted at small businesses, the best practices outline in this post apply to websites of virtually any size. 7 deadly sins of s ite design by iMedia Connection Seth Rosenblatt , VP of product marketing at CMS vendor Interwoven , uses the seven deadly sins of Dante...

This content has been moved to The Four C's of Social Media Marketing on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: definition of social media, John Jantsch, Brian Solis, Joseph Thornley, user-generated content, Liz Strauss, blog, social netowrking, social bookmarking, Twitter, LinkedIn, Searchles, Cece Salomon-Lee, SEOmoz, Skittles del.icio.us tags: definition of social media, John Jantsch, Brian Solis, Joseph Thornley, user-generated content, Liz Strauss, blog, social netowrking, social bookmarking, Twitter, LinkedIn, Searchles, Cece Salomon-Lee, SEOmoz, Skittles icerocket tags: definition of social media, John Jantsch, Brian Solis, Joseph Thornley, user-generated content, Liz Strauss, blog, social netowrking, social bookmarking, Twitter, LinkedIn, Searchles, Cece Salomon-Lee, SEOmoz, Skittles Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Marketing automation software vendor Marketo today announced the launch of its Marketo Lead Management 3.0 software suite. With more than 200 new features, the release is the most significant since the product's initial launch in early 2008. Promising deeper support for a "conversational model of marketing," the new release provides 75 user interface enhancements as well as new features including: More fine-grained control over segmentation, targeting, and triggering; "Progressive profiling" on forms (i.e. additional profile is requested as a prospect moves through an interactive process); Native integration with Salesforce.com ; Web visitor profiling; and Automated duplicate lead removal. Pricing starts at $1,500 per month and the company now has more than 150 midmarket and enterprise customers. Marketo competes with products such as Eloqua , Silverpop Engage B2B (formerly Vtrenz), and Manticore in the marketing automation / demand generation sp...

Unless you are optimizing only for some extremely niche keywords, off-page optimization—building links from other websites to yours—is a critical and significant factor for SEO success. The blog posts cited here, some of the best of 2008 on the topic of link building, provide guidance on how and where to obtain valuable external links. They also offer advice on ineffective tactics and "bad neighborhoods" to avoid. Local Search Ranking Presentation - SMX LoMo 2008 by Website Promotion Is Not Voodoo Will Scott , president of Search Influence, shares his presentation from the San Francisco for SMX Local Mobile event. His deck actually covers the organic search marketinging basics—keywords, content and links. But his section on "where to get links" is particularly helpful for anyone seeking to optimize local search results. 8 Directory Submission Red Flags by Small Business Search Marketing Matt McGee offers advice on what to avoid when obtaining links throu...