Gnome Likes: Promoted Tweets, Ugly Babies, Links & Keywords

Here at Web Gnomes, we stay on top of the ever-changing world of Internet Marketing so you don’t have to. We enjoy learning new tricks of the trade and putting them to practice in the work that we do for our esteemed clients. Here is some of the most helpful Internet marketing info we came across this week:

Twitter Debuts Analytics Platform, Expands Promoted Tweets Distribution

Our friends over at Search Engine Watch brought two Twitter updates to our attention:

1. Twitter is launching an analytics platform sometime “soon.” This will include “links to the publisher site, clicks, top links by timeframe, average number of tweets, and percent of tweets generated by the Tweet button.” We like this because analytics is the best way to measure success. Hands down.
2. Twitter is also expanding its ad platform to include sponsored tweets to people who do not follow your brand. Promoted Tweets allow you to reach a targeted audience and now your ad will stretch further than ever.

Why Isn’t My Site Ranking? Don’t Blame Google Because Your Baby is Ugly

Here’s another great post by Miranda Miller, blogging for Search Engine Watch. To me, it was a good reminder that the usability of your site matters. A lot. If your site isn’t ranking, you may want to consider an expert usability review of your site in addition to a basic SEO Audit. (We can help you with both!)

How to Reach Bloggers Ninja Style

In a previous post this week, we talked about the importance of External Links for SEO success. This article from SEOmoz provides a step-by-step approach to honest link building. It will not get you links overnight, but it provides a sustainable approach to continuous link building.

Keyword Metrics for SEO (And Driving Actions from Data) – Whiteboard Friday

Tuning in to SEOmoz’s Whiteboard Friday is one of my favorite Friday activities (yes, I’m a fan!). This week, Rand provides four great ways to look at your keyword data and what to do with it.

1. Search Engines vs. Market Share: Look at the breakdown in traffic from the major search engines and determine if you are matching the average traffic share of each one. If you find that you are low in a particular search engine, you may want to target that search engine somehow.
2. Keyword Distribution: Organize your keywords by head, middle, tail, and long tail. Look at number of keywords in each bucket, number of visitors, page rank, and conversions. It’s a great way to get out of the rut of worrying about the same small bucket of “head” keywords all the time. You may find some real opportunity in tail or even long tail keyword phrases.
3. Top Keywords: Look at visits, conversions, average rank, and keyword difficulty. Adding the keyword difficulty lets you know what’s attainable and where you have some SEO opportunities.
4. Top Content: Look at visits and conversions as well as keywords sending traffic to particular pages. This will help you determine what type of content is popular and what you should focus on in the future, be it guest posts or videos.