Can’t believe it’s that time again – the week’s are rushing past! Here’s the round up of the best blog posts/articles I’ve read this week…

Search Engines

Microsoft launched a new search engine called Bing - available to microsoft employees now, and to the rest of us oiks shortly. Just can’t wait? Take a look at Greg Sterling’s Bing v Google head to head.

Meanwhile over at Google, they’ve been working on a new communications tool called Wave. Google describe it as:

 ”…equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

SEO

Approaching international SEO is always tricky – SharkSEO has outlined 3 approaches to site structure for international SEO and the pros and cons of each – essential reading. 

Over at SEOmoz Rob Ousby looks at how to increase clicks on your organic listings via some careful crafting of the snippet which the search engines display in their results – SEO meets marketing – love it! 

Social Media

Is Social Media the marketing end-all? Doug  deGrood at Advertising Age isn’t convinced. An excellent opinion piece and well worth a read.

Marketing

I’m a massive fan of Malcolm Gladwell writer of Blink and The Tipping Point (incidentally if you haven’t already, do read his books). His latest article in the New Yorker explores How David Beats Goliath - i.e. how the underdog can win – even against the odds. It is a long article, but well worth a read.  

PPC

The pros and cons of bidding on clients own brand names is always up for debate. Over at Search Engine Journal, Brian Carter illustrates the value of brand PPC, giving a compelling argument backed up with some interesting stats, which might make you think again.

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s Funny

This week I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with grammar and punctuation, hence this cartoon really tickled me (NB there’s a naughty swear word in the cartoon, so don’t click the link if you’re offended by such things). 

Hat tip to Ciaran for this. 

Have a lovely weekend

Image credit joyosity

Well hello there!

Despite being on annual leave, I’m still taking some time out of my daytime television watching to bring you the weekly round up. Now, that’s commitment

So here’s the round up of the best blog posts/articles I’ve read this week…

Events / Conferences

This week saw SMX London, which sadly I couldn’t attend. Fortunately Kevin from seoptimise pulled together 41 top tips which he took away from the event, and Molly at Distilled pulled together a round up identifying the four key themes which ran through the event - nice work!

SEO

Link building is a key part of any SEO project and over at Search Engine Guide, Diane Aull is keen to remind you not to overlook your own internal linking and navigation. Wise words indeed.

Struggling to get your head around URL rewrites and 301 redirects? Fear not, dear hearts, over at SEOmoz, Jen’s  fantastic post will set you straight.

Social Media

Thinking about venturing into Social Media? Be good boys and girls and plan properly - Lisa at Outspoken Media has written a fabulous post on creating a social media plan - you’d do well to heed her advice.

Web Design & Usability

Bamboozled by web design jargon? Pop over to Smashing magazine’s site and sneak a peak at their glossary… then bookmark it so you can refer to it again (and again, and again, and again).

PPC

Still confused about quality score? It’s something I get asked about a lot. See Jon Myers’ post on Search Cowboys - he explains all and provides a potted PPC history lesson.

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s Funny

Erm, well perhaps this is only funny if you watch Lost. If you don’t watch Lost, then you should – if only because you could then appreciate the brilliance of this little gem from Robert Brockway via Cracked.

Have a lovely weekend

Is there something I’ve missed? Hit up the comments…

Well, hello there and happy Friday!

Welcome to our new feature. Each week we’ll be bringing you a round up of some of the best blog posts/articles we’ve read relating to Search Marketing – so here goes!

SEO

Stephan Spencer (via Search Engine Land) rants about a site which despite being ‘unfriendly’ to search engines, still ranks well.

Small Business SEO

Sugarrae (Rae Hoffman) wrote an excellent post on how small businesses might increase their online presence. She’s used lawn care to illustrate her example, but the ideas can easily be applied to any business.

Search Engines

Google Searchology 2009, saw the launch of some new developments – Google Search Options, Wonder Wheel, Google Squared and Rich Snippets - see Matt Cutts’ thoughts and Danny Sullivan’s Live Blogging coverage.

Blogging

Preparing to launch your blog? Or maybe just considering your options? Don’t miss Lucy Langdon’s fantastic blog launch checklist on SEOmoz.

Social Media

There’s been a whole lot of noise about Twitter, but I couldn’t agree more with Dr Pete’s post about the real power of Twitter on SEOmoz.

Jennifer Horowitz talks us through the seven deadly sins of social media - check yourselves boys and girls :)

Web Design & Usability

OK, so this post wasn’t written this week, but I think it’s fantastic. Dr Pete’s created a really rather marvellous cheat sheet to designing a usable website. The man’s a genius.

PPC

Joe of PPC Hero wrote a great post about broadening exposure on the Google Content Network - now many advertisers elect not to run on the content network, but for some clients we’ve seen some really good results – if you’re thinking about trying it yourself, it’s a must read.

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s Funny

Well there;’s not much point in doing this if we can’t make you smile. 1000 Awesome Things is a blog – where in, as the name suggests they count down 1000 awesome things. Kinda like a daily reason to be cheerful – enjoy and have a lovely weekend.

Is there something I’ve missed? Hit up the comments