January 2012 Roundup Edition of The Net Gazette
 
Because of my obsessive-compulsive-like personality, I tend to scour the Web every morning and night (on my trusty iPad) for news, articles, blog posts and videos that will help me in my own Web businesses. Through years of trial and error, and reading copious amounts of business and marketing content, I have learned who to listen to and who to ignore.
 
I bookmark the really useful ones and I am now going to share all my top findings with you, a loyal Net Gazette subscriber, on a regular basis. And I'll offer my opinions, commentary and advice where necessary.
 
Why listen to me?
  1. As already stated, I am obsessed with finding and consuming useful online marketing content for my businesses.
  2. I own and operate a Web business consulting firm, Oak Web Works, LLC, and I have successfully helped many others in their online business pursuits. 
  3. I am in the same trenches as you. You see, I own a number of blogs and websites that generate an income for me (and they are not in the Web design or marketing verticals). So I am very, very invested in learning as much as possible that can potentially help my business make more money and grow.
 
So, to start with, here are some of the things you ought to check out.
 
General Web Marketing and Web-Related Information
 
 
Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2011 by Tamar Weinberg
This is an absolutely amazing and huge list of resource. From SEO to blogging, link building to local online marketing, this is well worth your time
 
7 Tips for Landing Page Greatness by Erez Barak
Creating a great landing page is a critical step in the conversion funnel. By viewing the page as a speed bump in the conversion process rather than an information dump, you'll find users will be incl...

Pingdom reports in to let us know there are 2.1 Billion active Web users worldwide
 
Pinterest is an online pinboard. Organize and share things you love. This may be the next Twitter. 
 
21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic (Updated 2012) by Rand Fishkin
Need to attract more attention to your blog? Here are some ideas for the New Year.
 
 
The World of Google
 
Last year, Google rolled out a new algorithm dubbed 'Panda' and has changed the search engine optimization game forever. Here are a few must-reads on this subject.
 
Panda in Detail by Peter van der Graaf
 
So far in 2012, Google has been busy rolling out other things that will affect your online business. The most notable is the new Google Search Plus Your World. 
 
"The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful," said Amit Singhal, who oversees Google's ranking algorithms.
 
Google's Results Get More Personal With "Search Plus Your World" by Danny Sullivan
 
32 Totally Free Google "Search Plus Your World" #SEO Resources by Marty Weintraub
 
 
Getting Social with Facebook and Twitter
 
If you ever wondered how to get fans for your business Facebook page, read this:
 
How We Got To 40,310 Facebook Fans In 4 Days
(I tried this with one site of mine that had less than 100 Facebook fans. With a much smaller budget than what they had, we were able to to increase our Fans to over 500. So this really works!)
 
Please be sure to look for future Roundups emails from me and happy webbing!
 
- Jason OConnor

 

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