Gnome Likes: Google+ vs. Facebook, Radical Blog Tips & SEO Fun

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:

Google+ vs. Facebook: The Gloves Are Off [OPINION]

If you’re not one of the 20 million existing users of Google+, you now have an opportunity to join. In this Mashable article, we learned that as of this week, Google+ is available to everybody (previously by invitation only). And if you’re serious about Internet marketing, you should join and explore this Facebook competitor. The author discusses this week’s changes by both Facebook (news feed update) and Google + (multiple features including search – see below) and decides in the end that there is no clear winner – yet.

Up Close With Google+ Search

It seems rather odd that a search engine would not have a proper search feature for its social media application, but that was the case until this week. You could search for people, yes, but that was about it. This article from Search Engine Land agrees and describes in detail the new search functionality.

When you search using the search box at the top of the page, you get results back for the given keyword. By default, you get everything. However, you can filter the results by:

Here is an example of a search for “seo” in my Google+ account. Pretty cool!

Why So Many Blogs Fail (And What to Do About It)

This sounds like a pretty depressing article, but the truth hurts! The point of the article is that creating a blog may not be the best investment for a small business owner. It may have been in 2004, but with all the great content that is now online, the competition for rankings is fierce.

The article advices that you may be better off focusing on a newsletter to your existing mailing list and leading them to top-notch static landing pages as appropriate.

The evolution of Making Page 1 [INFOGRAPHIC]

For a little fun on a Friday afternoon, we leave you with this great infographic of “The Evolution of Making Page 1” from Search Engine Journal (pay special attention to “The SEO Factors to Top Ranking Pages” in 2011):