Marketing Pilgrim

I am from the Tri-State area (for the uninitiated that encompasses NY/NJ/CT area that is within striking distance of New York City) originally so I am used to the New York Post. In fact, it’s a fun read on most days because it is a tabloid that tends to ‘over-embellish’ a bit but you know that going in (unless you’re a tourist then please just spend your money and leave quietly ). A headline from yesterday, though, got my attention because of the sheer NY Post shock factor. It read: Fear Grips Google, Sources: Sergey Orders Bing Study. Way to go headline guys…. that one worked.

According to the paper

You’d think nothing would get under the skin of search giant Google.

Today, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Wordcamp RDU event–one of many events held around the world for WordPress users.

I gave a presentation outlining my advice for search engine optimization (SEO) for WordPress. I only had about 30 minutes–and had to cater to both newbies and advanced users–so I focused on what I felt were the most important topics.

I’m sharing my SEO for WordPress presentation below, but keep in mind that my presentations are about 30% of what’s on the slides, and 70% of what I convey verbally.

PS. Some of the advice I gave can be found in these previous blog posts:

• 21 of the Best WordPress Plugins for New Blogs
• Blog Marketing Tips #1: How to Optimize Blog Post Titles

Google has shown an affinity for Wikipedia for years, often listing entries as a top source for many types of web searches. Now they’ve added links to Wikipedia pages with news stories on Google News.  This seems like a small detail, but it gives Wikipedia even more credibility with the most popular search engine.

Google News already gets news from both traditional media like major newspapers, CNN and Reuters (though the AP hates this fact), as well as new media (popular news blogs like Marketing Pilgrim).  There are also links to YouTube videos. This further blends how we get news and what is credible.

Nielsen retooled its online audience measurement system to try to more accurately measure and reflect web usage at large by including RSS measures. However, something went terribly wrong, and Nielsen overreported the audience reach for several sites that seriously don’t want to see any further “correction”:

an anomaly in the RSS feeds a single user had set up to receive news updates from three publishers – Foxnews.com, NYTimes.com, and USAToday.com – caused their estimates to be grossly inflated, and has triggered a deeper probe by clients into the technology and methods Nielsen uses to measure online audiences.

Mm. Robust it was not, eh? Nielsen has revised the audience measures for the affected sites downward (just what news sites need these days), and are gearing up the planned newer system to prevent future errors like this.

All your hours are belong to us: YouTube announced yesterday that it has joined Facebook Connect. The integration between the two sites is more than just the typical FB connect partnership, which allows FB members to link their profiles to comments on participating sites. On the Facebook Developer blog, program manager Josh Elman says:

When logged into Facebook and YouTube, users can now automatically publish and share the videos they upload to YouTube directly to Facebook.

YouTube isn’t the first video site to integrate with Facebook. According to AllFacebook, Joost has been in a partnership with Facebook Connect since December and has seen some serious benefits:

CNET announced today that AOL has purchased two local-oriented sites: Patch and Going.com. As CNET pointed out, the acquisition of Patch isn’t a big surprise, as newly appointed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong founded and invested in Patch while working as Google’s sales chief. Armstrong believes that “Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today—there’s a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily.”

He’s hoping that Going.com will give AOL another way to capitalize on that market. Going.com offers event and invitation services, along with ticketing and ways for locals to connect with one another. The goal of the acquisition is to build out AOL’s local services, but is it also insight into AOL’s new market strategy?