Hello my wearing web wandering search geeks and welcome to another edition of ‘ 7 Days of Search and Social ‘ – if there are two things that slow down the news/blogging world in the search industry; it’s summer and holidays. We had both last week (two North American holidays at least)

One of the most common challenges of business blogging is sourcing content. The range of things that can interrupt content creation are important obstacles to overcome because without content there is little reason for readers to return

I can’t count how many times in the past couple years I’ve heard people talk about how important information architecture (also referred to as IA) is to SEO.  Yet it’s almost always presented in a way that calls upon a lot of highly technical lingo.  Taxonomy.  UX.  Contextual browsing.  Mental model.  Ontology.  Semantic web…  Honestly speaking, I don’t even know what half the lingo means in the moment I hear some of these words. And my eyes instantly gloss over.  Yet in truth, even though I’m not a rocket scientist (nor a library sciences major), it turns out I totally get it – not from a linguistic perspective, but instead, from a visual and marketing perspective.  So this is the first in a series of articles that will present otherwise highly complex concepts in hopefully easy to understand ways.

I can’t count how many times in the past couple years I’ve heard people talk about how important information architecture (also referred to as IA) is to SEO.  Yet it’s almost always presented in a way that calls upon a lot of highly technical lingo.  Taxonomy.  UX.  Contextual browsing.  Mental model.  Ontology.  Semantic web…  Honestly speaking, I don’t even know what half the lingo means in the moment I hear some of these words. And my eyes instantly gloss over.  Yet in truth, even though I’m not a rocket scientist (nor a library sciences major), it turns out I totally get it – not from a linguistic perspective, but instead, from a visual and marketing perspective.  So this is the first in a series of articles that will present otherwise highly complex concepts in hopefully easy to understand ways. Caveat Before I proceed, let this be a warning to anyone reading this article who, themselves, might in fact be, speak and breathe in highly technical terms.  I’m not here to profess that I fully grasp every single thing about IA.  In fact, I may even over-simplify some of the concepts I discuss.  I ask your forgiveness in advance, simply because my goal of this and future related articles is to help non-technically advanced people in our industry.  The more I (we) can help others understand these principles and concepts, the better we as an industry will become, and the higher quality both of users and search engine results… Rocket Science Simplified Okay – so what’s this thing all about?  From an SEO perspective, Information Architecture, in plain English, is: The way and means by which content on a web site is organized and presented for users and the search engines to be able to easily digest and gain the most value from.

As it transitions to becoming a content provider from a pure search approach, Yahoo is innovating and moving boldly into unchartered territory as it launches today its UpShot blog that will carry search-driven news content.

So BP’s reputation is obviously on the line. Well, “on the line” is a gross understatement, but you know what I’m saying. And in the search engine marketing world, many have taken notice of their aggressive efforts to manage their reputation online.  According to a recent Search Engine Watch article , estimates near $1M a month in spend between Google AdWords and YouTube advertising

Onsite behavioral targeting can help you personalize your Web pages to create comfort and confidence for your visitors, ultimately driving them deeper into your site with higher engagement.   Based on learned behaviors and predictive attributes, analytics engines can automatically serve content that resonates with each visitor’s intent and drives action. Such a solution can collect and utilize hundreds of anonymous data point relative to each individual visitor.  Alleged self-learning algorithms can draw out the most relevant attributes for each site visitor, track visitor activity in real time and record and cluster onsite activities.

Twitter is coming up with a new revenue-generating stream by way of its @Earlybird account, it seems. If you’re a deal seeker, this might be for you. Click to read the rest of this post…

Twitter is coming up with a new revenue-generating stream by way of its @Earlybird account, it seems. If you’re a deal seeker, this might be for you. Click to read the rest of this post..

Posted by laura This post was originally in YOUmoz , and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc