Here it is, you weekly grand tour of Search & Social, courtesy of the fine folks of Anvil Media & Formic Media!

PPC

• Think Insights with Google – A new market research website where Google will be publishing learnings and insights about digital marketing trends – from whitepapers to case studies and videos.
• Showing the display URL domain in the headline for select ads on Google – Another change to AdWords text ads, Google may now append your domain to your headline – should we quit including the company/domain in the headline of branded campaigns?
  
• Prevent Previous Buyers from Seeing Your Google Remarketing Ads – Step-by-step instructions for suppressing converted customers from seeing remarketing ads – a great tactic for saving money on clicks and limiting exposure of deeper discounts.

SEO

• Rapper Lil B’s Recipe for Search Optimized Success – this rapper has the fundamentals down. From social media, to link bait, to content generation we could all learn something from Lil B.
• Digging Deep with Internal Site Search Part II – Anvil’s Rachel Andersen explores the value of internal site search data in Google Analytics.
• How to Thrive in Crowded SERPs – The answer? – Ensure a unique selling proposition (USP). A step by step guide to defining your USP and how articulating this to your customers may offer a one-up to the competition.

Analytics

• Data Sharing: SEOMoz Open Analytics – SEOMoz has added what they are calling “Open Analytics” to the bottom of all of their posts. Anyone can see the number of visits, pageviews & time on page + traffic from different mediums (direct, organic, referral) for any blog post on their site. Preaching data transparency and using it as a learning tool (especially on the YouMoz blog) to see what content gets the most traffic
• Recommendations for custom GA Setup – [Warning: I didn’t watch the video] SEOMoz White board Friday goes over their recommendations for customization on the SEOMoz site and why. Reviews event tracking, e-commerce set up, site speed and custom variables.
• Twitter Sentiment Tracking Tools for any Budget – Quick list of some tools for tracking brand, sentiment etc.

Link Development

• Link Building For Life – Determining Lifetime Link Value – Figure out what links are the best to target and what link characteristics indicate a long-lasting high lifetime value
• Online Sentiment and Link Building – Make sure you are monitoring your online reputation consistently and turn potential negatives into positives, and build link while you do it

Social Media

• Facebook Launches Photo Tagging for Pages – A Page can be tagged anywhere that someone can view a photo in the photo viewer. These photos will appear on the Photos tab on the Page, and not on the Wall. In addition, a Page can be tagged by anyone on Facebook, not just people who have Liked your Page.
• Facebook Creates Best Practice Guide – Learn what Facebook views as best practices along with case studies around objectives like product development, awareness, preference, traffic, sales, loyalty, word of mouth, and insights.
• Twitter Tool Alert: Visibli – Claims to be the “Compete.com” of social sharing. Sneak Peek makes a couple of metrics publicly available: clicks on links and clicks on reshared links. The former are original links, while the latter are retweets. Example HERE

Local SEO

• Facebook Places and Check-In Deals Come to Pages – If your page has an address then you automatically get Places functionality – no more annoying process of merging your Place page and Page.
• A Little Light Reading On Google’s Ranking Factors – A look at Google’s patent application for scoring local search results

Conversion Optimization

• 10 Ways to Increase Conversions on Mobile App Landing Pages – Thinking about developing a mobile app? Check out some tips on how to get website visitors to download it–complete with free templates.

B2C

• Baby Boomers: A Forgotten Goldmine for Retailers? – Baby boomers make up ⅓ of total online users and these users are spending more time and money online than any other demographic. Target these customer by not “aging up messaging”, keep landing pages clear and simple with an easy check-out process and optimize for mobile. “More than 86% of boomers have a mobile phone.”

Retail/Storefront

• Daily Deal Growths Spurs Coupon Resellers – Coupon resale sites allow users to resell their vouchers they’ve decided they don’t need or won’t have time to use.

Web Design

• Twitter and Facebook Kill RSS – Facebook and Twitter end support for RSS feeds.
• SEO tips for redesigns – SEO practices to keep in mind when redesigning your website.

Mobile

• 19% of hotel queries come from mobile devices – make sure the whole experience from searching for a hotel to booking a room has been optimized for mobile devices.
• Apps 6 Times More Popular than Web on Phones, Less Popular on Tablets – users prefer apps on phones, but the web is much more popular on tablets.
• Check-In App Users Are More Responsive to Ads – As a more engaged and active demographic, 40% of check-in users recall seeing a mobile web or app ad, compared to 27% of general smartphone users.