Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009

It’s my birthday! And like last year, I have a gift for you.

Every year, I read hundreds (thousands?) of articles on the topic of Internet Marketing, from SEO to social media to web usability and then some. And every year, I hand pick the best articles that I’ve read and compile them in a resource that I hope will last a long time. Here’s my list for 2008. Here’s 2007. Here’s 2006. I painstakingly go through these resources with the hopes that these posts will serve as references for you in years to come. Yes, that’s right. Despite the changing landscape, the articles I list here are typically those that I feel are “timeless” in that they could be referenced in the future and still have utility. These posts are not in response to newsworthy events, nor are they displayed in any particular order. They are strategic guides that hopefully will enhance your internet marketing experiences in the future.

Every year, I can only read so many articles. I try to keep this as exhaustive as possible, but even so, I don’t know every great resource. Like last year, I enlisted in help from my followers on Twitter, many of whom gave me some great posts to add to this list. If you’re looking to be included on 2010’s list, you now know what to do.

Like last year, if your article is highlighted in this comprehensive post, there’s a badge for you to proudly celebrate this achievement on your site. Thanks again to David Mihm who specializes in Portland Web Design for creating them. Scroll down to the bottom of the post to grab the code you need for your post or site.

Without further ado, I now present to you the best internet marketing posts of 2009.

Social Media: Getting Started

• Why You Have to Engage in Social Media, Even if You Don’t Want to (A Smart Bear): Jason Cohen (@asmartbear) makes a compelling argument into why social media must be considered, even if you have no interest in it. The article has examples of how social media worked too.
• The Poetry of Social Networking to Court Customers and Invest in Relationships (Brian Solis): Brian Solis shares his foreword to Sean Percival’s book, MySpace Marketing.  In it, he offers some thought-provoking insights into what must be understood before going into social media marketing.  And… Brian Solis is the most eloquent writer I have ever seen in the blogosphere.  This post is really poetry, as are all his other writings and blog posts.
• 40 Key Elements to Getting Started in Social Media (Louis Gray): Mike Fruchter writes an awesome blog post on Louis Gray’s blog about how to get involved in social media, from branding to blogging to Twitter to community. It’s definitely a worthwhile read.
• Marketing on the Social Web: A Few Key Ingredients (Michael Fruchter): I love the graphic. But more than that, Mike’s post explains that social media is really about using social channels appropriately to communicate and converse — and as an extension of that, you might just end up being able to sell something. It’s really not that hard!
• How Big Brands Can Start Testing Social Media (Conversation Agent): It’s really not that hard to get into social media marketing. It just requires a small shift in mindset.
• Why Social Media is Scary (Steve Radick): Why is social media scary? There are challenges to be overcome by junior employees, developers, managers, and even senior leadership. Steve Radick tackles them all in this post.
• The ABCs of Online Networking (Your Job Stop): I love Joanna Lord’s article — every single letter of the alphabet has an application in online networking. Don’t overlook these — at least consider them!
• What Social Media is and What Social Media is Not (Louis Gray): So many people don’t get what social media is. Mike saves the day by straightening them out. 🙂
• Is it Too Late to Catch Up? (Seth Godin): Seth Godin suggests ideas that will make social media slowly work for you as an organization.
• Creating Your Social Media Plan (Outspoken Media): This good primer talks about securing your brand, setting metrics, knowing who you are, setting a presence, engaging, and assessing success.
• 6 Steps for Creating a Social Media Roadmap and Plan (Green Marketing 2.0): Lorna Li writes very introductory post on what social media is and what you can do with it with some great insights.
• A Corporate Guide for Social Media (Forbes): Forbes actually gets it when it comes to social media strategy in the workplace. Have a read and see for yourself.
• 20 Ways to Drive Leads Through Social Media (Kyle Lacy): Here are some of the things you can do to start seeing some movement in this thing they call “social media marketing.”
• 10 Tips for Social Media Marketers (PR Squared): Todd Defren tells you how to jump into social media marketing. What can you do today?
• How to Create Measurable Objectives (Altitude Branding): We’ve talked about goals and strategies as it relates to social media marketing, but let’s break them down even further.

Social Media: Implementation and Execution

• 7 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing Campaigns Fail, and How to Fix them (Stuntdubl): Todd Malicoat never blogs, but when he does, he writes great posts like this suggesting that if your social media marketing campaign is failing, you may have had the wrong strategies in place. Good thing he proposes how to fix them also!
• Two Approaches: Shotgun vs. Laser (Web Strategist): There are two (of many) approaches you can take in your social media strategy. Which approach best suits you?
• How to Make Social Media Work for Non-Consumer Brands (Mashable): This is a good B2B social media article which is chock full of examples.
• Ways to Be Human at a Distance (Chris Brogan): Chris Brogan always talks about how businesses can be human again. So what are they to do? He breaks this article into some of the basics of presence, how to converse, how to add multimedia to those conversations, and the topics of conversation.
• How to Manage Successful Social Media Promotions (Mashable): How can you get feedback from social channels to offer exclusive deals to your followers on social media communities? Read this Mashable guide.
• How to Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet in Any Topic (ReadWriteWeb): Marshall Kirkpatrick writes an amazing guide on how you can find thought leaders in any industry.
• The 12 Step Social Media Program for Traditional Marketers (HubSpot): Here are a few things agencies looking to replace different pieces of their business with social media can do.
• 10 Creative Contests Powered by Social Media (Mashable): You can use social media to do many things: build community, make business decisions, and more. Let a contest help make these ideas a reality.

Social Media: Small Business

• Why Small is the New Big in Social Media Marketing (Jonathan Fields): Jonathan Fields explains why small businesses have a real advantage over large ones when it comes to biting the social media bullet. This is a great read.
• 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses (Mashable): Here are five techniques proposed by Samir Balwani that go beyond the mere social media presence, including contests.
• How to Promote a Small Business Website (Small Business Trends): This article isn’t totally social media focused, but it’s part of it.  If you want to market a small business website, social is just part of your overall marketing mix.

Hiring for Social Media

• How to Evaluate Social Media Street Cred (Logic+Emotion): Do you know if that person is able to handle a social media marketing initiative? How omnipresent is he? How well-versed is she? David Armano suggests to study out the candidate first; they shouldn’t just be focused on Twitter, for example.
• 25 Signs You’ve Got a Strong Social Media Consultant or Agency (The Buzz Bin): Beth Harte and Geoff Livingston explain that social media consultants need to know a lot more than about the basic tools out there.
• Why You Shouldn’t Trust Social Media to SEO Consultants (Social Media Explorer): The fact that a few in the SEO community have a narrow approach with regard to social media engagement troubles me.
• 10 Questions to Evaluate a Social Media “Expert” (Conversation Marketing): Well, how did you fare in this quiz?
• I’d Like to See a Social Media Consultant or Agency That… (Direct Marketing Observations): I really liked Marc Meyer’s post here. It was actually how he and I built up a relationship.
• 25 Tips to Choosing a Social Media Consultant (Kyle Lacy): How do you find a social media consultant? They might want to pass this test with flying colors.
• Hiring for Social Media: What I’d Look For (Altitude Branding): Amber Naslund has a great series on good and bad approaches for social media job description and tops it off with what she’d look for if she were to hire for the position.

Social Media: Measurement and ROI

• Measurement Strategies for 5 Social Media Goals (PR Communications): John Cass talks about the various goals you might get through social media and the various ways to measure these goals.
• Are We Too Worried with Finding the ROI of Social Media? (The Viral Garden): What are big brand saying about the ROI of social media? Check Mack Collier’s post to find out.
• 100 Ways to Measure Social Media (Inside the Marketers Studio/David Berkowitz): Who said you can’t measure social media?
• Social Media Metrics: What We Need to Track Sales (Samir Balwani): Samir Balwani writes a great post on some of the ways you get ROI from social media.
• Measuring Social Media ROI: Does Size Matter? (Mark Hayward): Mark Hayward shows the ROI of social media. With a plan, you can measure effectiveness of SM.
• Social Media: Who Can Show Us the Real Value? (Econsultancy):  I like the measurements this article provides. The Online Consumer Engagement Value report idea is a good one.

Social Media: General

• Web Promoters: What Qualities Make Up the Effective Ones? (The Future Buzz): Adam Singer writes an excellent piece on the qualities that make up the most popular “power users” of the social web — that is, those individuals whose content people want to consume always.
• 11 Ways to Lose Friends and Followers Online (Social Media Rockstar): This reminds me of my social media etiquette post; there are just so many things you can do that will not win you any friends on social networks. Brett Borders explores the behavioral triggers that don’t win you any new friends at all.
• The A-Z of Social Media for Brands (Econsultancy): They say it’s “social media for brands.” I say it’s “social media for everyone.”
• Is Social Media Overrated? (Samir Balwani): This post serves as a reminder that social media is just one part of the marketing mix, and you still need to strategize and allocate resources intelligently. What is social media about? At the end of the day, it’s about real connections to consumers. (No, it’s not about the tools!)
• 10 Ways to Be a Great Social Media User (Search Engine Journal): Vince Blackham writes a great post on Search Engine Journal about how to be a great social media user, with tips such as contributing, diversifying your efforts, being real, being meaningful, and more.
• Experts Talk About Social Media Training (Samir Balwani): Samir has a great interview on the background on social media marketing with 5 experts. (Note: I was interviewed. Normally I don’t self-promote in this roundup, but the quotes are good, and Jason Falls, who was featured, is one of my role models.)
• Social Media Tips for Optimizing Time Spent by Marketers (Online Marketing Blog): Social media takes time, but yes, you can optimize it with tips from Adam Singer.
• Answers to Social Media Questions You Should Know (Online Marketing Blog): Here are some great questions and answers from Lee Odden on the typical questions you face in social media marketing.
• The Social Media Conversion Scale (Logic+Emotion): David Armano provides a graphical chart showing the various stages of social media acceptance. Where are you on the list?
• The Hardest Things to Teach Your Clients About Social Media Marketing (10e20): A collaborative list of what things you should or shouldn’t expect of social media marketing.
• The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media (Search Engine Journal): I love how Jennifer Horowitz equates social media with the 7 sins. She has some great comparisons.
• 23 Social Media Marketing Tips from Dell, Comcast, HP, Wells Fargo, Best Buy, General Mills, Ford, UPS, Home Depot, Cirque du Soleil (Online Marketing Blog): Lee Odden takes advice from the best minds in social media who have worked in the corporate world. This is a fantastic interview!
• The Real Lesson in the Yelp User Review Lawsuit (Nine by Blue): The bottom line is that people need to realize that they can’t control the message. The best solution is to proactively address the situation and make it work for you.
• 5 People Who Broke the Rules of Social Media and Succeeded (Mashable): Real success stories and the experiences learned is the subject of this article.
• Which Social Media Channels Should You Be Using? (The Jordan Rules): This is a great chart and article on the best social media channels for both B2B and B2C companies.
• Share This or Else! What Makes People Share Content? (Samir Balwani): What prompts people to share content — and how does one capitalize on this? Samir discusses human psychology and explains how this correlates to content that is shareable.

Twitter

• Twitter, the Most Important Website Since Google (97th Floor): Yes, Twitter is that important. Chris Bennett features some great parallels in his article.
• Twitter, Customer Service, and Good Brand Management (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni writes a great primer to why Twitter is important for customer service, but then goes a step further and tells you what tools you can use to monitor your brand (and some that cost money and let you respond).
• A Twitter Basics Primer (The Buzz Bin): When you use Twitter for marketing or whatnot, you should consider why you intend to use it and what you plan on getting out of it. This is a basic article but goes into great depth.
• Who Should Tweet? (Samir Balwani): Samir talks about the pros and cons of Tweeting by company representatives, from the CEO to a brand. He suggests a “character” to be the face of the brand on Twitter, sort of like a mascot.
• 8 Twitter Networking Tips: From Online to In-the-Flesh (Twitip): Whether it’s getting instant responses or meeting people in real life via tweetup, some Twitter tips are not to be forgotten.
• The Ultimate Guide to Everything Twitter (Webdesigner Depot): This is a crazy in-depth guide on Twitter, but it’s already outdated since there have been a lot more news and apps that have come out since. Still, though, you can tell that there has been in immense amount of work put into it, and it definitely deserves recognition.
• You’re On Twitter, Now What? (Conversation Agent): How do you want to use Twitter? There are many goals you can achieve with the site.
• 4 Real Offline Uses of Twitter (Dream Systems Media): Twitter marketing is happening online, of course, but it’s happening offline too. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a Twitter decal on a car. It was rather cool. Here are four other ways people are promoting their Twitter accounts.
• How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Online Business (here.org.uk): This is a nice beginner business guide of the various things you can do in order to be seen as a credible and useful Twitter user.
• 101 Tweets on How to Use Twitter (SEO 2.0): Tad offers 101 ways to use Twitter in retweetable format. Tips include being active and tweeting daily, limiting using Twitter for broadcasting, focusing on company-wide social media policies, and more.
• Connecting with Customers on Twitter: 9 Tips for Success (10e20): Jake writes a great piece on what you should be doing on Twitter in order to be successful.
• Top 10 Reasons Your Company Should Not Tweet (BL Ochman’s Blog): Not everyone will be able to use Twitter. Here are 10 reasons why you as a company entity should avoid it.
• How to Integrate Social Media into Product Marketing (Social Computing Magazine): This is a nice detailed guide on how you can market products via social media. (P.S. Sending products to bloggers helps too!)
• The Tao of Tweeting (Mashable): Good art via Twitter is not that hard to achieve. Soren Gordhamer shows you how.
• Breakdown: 4 Ways Brands are Earning — and Buying — Followers on Twitter (Web Strategist): Jeremiah Owyang explores the Twitter space to see how followers are being earned (or not) on Twitter.
• The 10 Twitter Commandments (Econsultancy): Patricio Robles says that doing these sins is like shooting yourself in the foot.
• How to Use Twitter to Find Local Blog Content (Hyperlocalblogger): Twitter can bring you local traffic, so use it wisely to build friends and a following in your neighborhood.
• 137 Small Business Twitter Tips (Small Business Trends): One hundred and thirty seven people were asked to offer their best Twitter tips, and this has been aggregated and put in a document (PDF, but not linked to this page) for all to see.
• From Corporate to Personal: The Four Types of Social Media Profiles (Web Strategist): What kinds of brand profiles do you find on Twitter?
• 62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business (WebWorkerDaily): Be it credibility, growing your network, or marketing (and then some), this article is a good way to inspire yourself to grow your business Twitter presence.
• 8 Lessons Learned as a Brand on Twitter (tins/Rick Klau): Rick Klau works for Google. He talks about what he has learned by maintaining a brand presence on Twitter: specifically, Google’s Blogger account.
• Make Tweet Love: Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships (Brian Solis): This is an excellent compendium of tips to get the most out of Twitter, both by Brian Solis and then his own Twitter friends.

Facebook

• How to Create Rich HTML Tabs on Your Facebook Page (10e20): I know Jesse just contributed an awesome article on this blog but Victor’s guide here is also pretty good.
• Why You Need to Create a Facebook Fan Page (Quick Sprout): Neil Patel decided to build a Facebook fan page that was interactive, using it as a case study for why it would benefit you as a business to maintain one and what would be necessary to make it engaging.
• 10 Key SEO Strategies Every Facebook Owner Should Know (Inside Facebook): We all know Facebook tips and tricks, but did we know we can marry the schools of thought of Facebook optimization and SEO? Let’s dive into Justin Smith’s tips.
• How to Build Facebook Community (Socialbrite): If you’re looking to meet some goals with Facebook engagement, you have to actually be able to engage your audience and participate. This article presents fourteen tips for achieving this goal, most of which are common sense but which may inspire you to get more active.
• How to Win Facebook Friends and Influence People (All Facebook): Nick O’Neill’s post on how to become a Facebook power user (read: genuine) is great.
• The Beginner’s Guide to Advertising on Facebook (Jonathan Volk): If you’re looking to advertise on Facebook, be it for your product for via affiliate marketing (in Jonathan’s case), take tips from this guy. He makes 6 digits a MONTH.
• How to Violate Facebook Etiquette and Piss Off Your Friends (All Facebook): Sure, there’s no right or wrong way to use social networks, but there are still socially acceptable limits.
• Are Your Facebook Fans Truly Engaged? (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni shares the findings of a Frozen Frogs study with regards to engaging Facebook followers.  It’s good to know that there are ways to bring Facebook community closer together.

LinkedIn

• 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job (How to Change the World): Thought you couldn’t get a job on LinkedIn? Think again! 🙂
• 10 Tips to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile (SEOptimise): This is a beginner level LinkedIn howto, but it’s amazing to see how many people actually do not follow the basic rules of engagement for LinkedIn!
• Top 10 Reasons Why Your LinkedIn Question is Getting Mostly Pitches (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni writes a great piece about why your LinkedIn community involvement may not be so great for you when you start getting an abundance of pitches. What can you do differently?
• 7 Ways to Get More Out of LinkedIn (Mashable): Taking advantage of the professional network isn’t hard. Here are 7 ways to get the most out of it.
• How to Ensure Your LinkedIn Profile is Effective (Web Worker Daily): Meryl Evans has a good writeup on how to optimize the features of LinkedIn to make a pretty spiffy looking profile.

Leveraging Other Social Media Sites

• How to Get Media Attention and Traffic Out of BusinessExchange (Small Business Trends): Not many people know about BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange, but Anita does, and she explains how you can get visibility out of it.
• 10 Tips to Get the Most Out of Posterous (Make Tech Easier): Posterous is the new lifestreaming app. Shevonne tells you how to actually use it and take advantage of its features.
• 10 Useful Tips to Using FriendFeed (Make Tech Easier): FriendFeed is still going strong, and its community is pretty powerful. Shevonne Polastre tells you how to make the most of it. Big emphasis on point #9. That’s the way to maximize the potential of FriendFeed.
• How I Use FriendFeed (Webomatica): If you wanted to know a little more about the potential of FriendFeed, check out Jason Kaneshiro’s post.
• FriendFeed Groups – The Fast Track to Content and Community (Knowthenetwork.com): How can you use FriendFeed groups to your advantage? Easy.
• Tools to Analyze Delicious Tags, Bookmarks, and URLs (Search Engine Journal): I normally do not put toolbox posts in my yearly roundup because I look for posts with actionable ideas to be put to use. However, how many of you actually knew that Delicious has tools to help you get the most out of it?
• 3 Easy Tips for Improving the Potency of Your StumbleUpon Account (Search Engine Journal): This post by Ryan Caldwell explains how you can improve your StumbleUpon account, but I’d argue that the information could be applied to other social bookmarking sites or social networks as well.
• Getting Links AND Content from Flickr (Search Engine Land): Using Flickr to build content isn’t so hard once you get inspiration from this article which features a case study and suggested scenarios that you can use Flickr with to help.
• 4 Tools to Track Flickr (Search Engine Journal): If you are tasked with monitoring Flickr for the purposes of listening to the conversation or finding out statistics on the photos you’ve uploaded, you should check out these tools to make your job a whole lot easier.
• 6 Tips for Getting the Most out of Foursquare (Mashable): Foursquare is new for many, so learn it and soak it in while it’s still hot.

Blogging

• 13 Tips for Marketing Your Business with Your Blog (Problogger): Most businesses have one goal with their blog: marketing. Darren Rowse gives you 13 ways to do just that.
• 25 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started Blogging (Web Distortion): Paul Anthony (@webireland) writes an incredible high-level blogging guide, which, if followed, will definitely bring you ahead of the competition. Guaranteed.
• Do You Make These 10 Mistakes When You Blog? (Michael Hyatt): This is a good article on the common pitfalls facing bloggers, from not posting enough to posting too much and everything in between.
• Blog Post Ideas that Always Generate Buzz (The Future Buzz): In case you needed to be inspired even more to write good blog posts, Adam Singer covers even more angles for the aspiring blogger.
• A Crash Course in Comments (Chris Brogan): So many people don’t value the connections that can be had if you write meaningful comments on blogs.
• How to Find the Best Free Images/Photos/Graphics for Your Blog Posts (Smackdown!): Some really great public domain image search tools are reviewed in this article. Plus, of course, there’s Creative Commons licensed images too. And I’ll add another favorite: everystockphoto.com.
• 10 Things to Do Before Launching Your Blog (Small Business Trends): Maybe everyone reading this already has blogs.  Maybe you don’t.  If you’re about to start, read this guide.  If you’re starting a new one later on, read this guide.
• How to Write a Review (Blogging Tips): This is a different kind of blogging post, one that pertains to writing reviews of products. If you want to write a complete review of something, be sure to follow the guidelines highlighted in this post.
• 100 Ways to Find Ideas for Your Blog Posts (LifeSnips): If you’ve lost blogging inspiration, Steve Aitchison will bring you out of the blogging slumps. You can’t really run out of blogging ideas after reading this article unless the motivation isn’t within you.
• How to Make (and Keep) Your Blog Content in Demand (The Future Buzz): Adam Singer explains how you can keep your blog in demand, making it referenced and looked at regularly.
• 101 Ways to Promote a New Blog (Daily Blog Tips): Some of these ideas are rather unconventional, but I like ’em.
• 19 Reasons Why You Should Blog and Not Just Tweet (The Future Buzz): Everyone Tweets nowadays, but there are reasons why you should blog instead. Some of Adam Singer’s points include demonstrating passion, getting full analytics, limits of 140 characters, and being in full control of the content and the website.
• How to Make Blogging Work for Your Business (Wordtracker): This is a great guide by Chris Garrett into what blogs can do for you and how you can build your blog to be successful for your business.
• Suggested Guide for Writing Effective Blog Posts (PMA Media Group): Blogging isn’t always just about opening a “new post” link and typing your thoughts. For some, it’s just not that simple. You might want to start with ways to inspire yourself and include some SEO keyword ranking tips as well.
• 10 Steps to Creating an Authority Blog (David Walker): Bloggers, take note: the presentation and the content of your blog is everything. There’s more than that, though, and David Walker walks you though it.
• 5 Ways to Increase Your Blog’s Search Traffic (Search Engine People): In Glen Allsopp’s guest post for Search Engine People, he says that you can increase your blog’s search engine traffic by applying some tactics to old (already published) blog posts.
• 5 Ways to Turn Blog Comments into Conversations (SEO Scoop): Blog comments should be ongoing conversations, but how do you do that? Barry Welford explores ways to make blog comments more engaging.
• The Complete Guide to Video Blogging (Mashable): Ever wanted to be a video blogger? This in-depth Mashable article by Leah Betancourt talks about the roots of video blogging and how to get started.
• How to Use Curation to Make Your Blog Better (Influential Marketing): I love how Rohit Bhargava compares PostSecret to success in blogging. He offers great tips here.
• Starting a Blog? These 50 Lessons Will Help You Succeed (The Future Buzz): Using data gathered from the Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2009, Adam Singer gives solid actionable tips on how you can start a blog and why it’s important that you do.
• 22 Reasons for You to Blog (Gloson): The youngest person who will ever make it to my top posts is totally Gloson. He’s 11 and gives you 22 reasons why you should blog.
• 8 Tips for Building Community on Your Blog (Problogger): If you really have a strong blog, you have potential to also grow a strong community. But how? Darren Rowse provides the insights.
• How to Create a High Quality Blog (Dan Blank): Pretty pictures and solid advice make this blog post a winner for anyone — companies and people — looking to craft a high quality blog.
• A Short List of Content Elements for Your Consideration (Broadcasting Brain): Before you publish your blog, ask yourself the following questions. Due diligence, my friends.
• How to Make Your Corporate Blog More Social (Social Media Explorer): Dan Zarrella shares small ideas but smart ones that can make your corporate blog a lot more approachable.

Reputation Management

• Top 10 Ways to Save Your Online Reputation in 2009 (Small Business Trends): Business need to step up a notch and be a lot more personable to avoid a reputation management fiasco. Most companies need to start by simply acknowledging each and every incoming request from a customer as alluded to in #2.
• Using Social Media For Reputation Management (DirJournal): Some of the tips here aren’t discussed in other articles, such as focusing on video and optimizing for local search.
• How to Build a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard (aimClear): This is an incredibly huge post by Marty Weintraub on how to set up a reputation management monitoring dashboard, from doing the keyword research to finding additional keywords to monitor to actually building it. It has lots of screenshots and good actionable information that you can get started with today.
• A Common Search Reputation Management Timeline (Search Cowboys): To summarize this post, if you don’t act to prevent reputation management issues, you’re doomed in the search world.
• Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management (Vertical Measures): My book talks about how maintaining social media profiles can help you with your reputation management issues. This post echoes that sentiment and provides specific social networks that you should establish your presence on.
• How Companies Should Respond to Negative Reviews (Outspoken Media): You shouldn’t always let criticism sit.  Sometimes you can respond.  What would you respond to, though?  How should you do it?
• The Dos and Don’ts of Online Reputation Management (Search Engine Journal): This article is a simple easy list to follow for reputation management issues. Yes, you can push down negative search engine results, but you need a plan. You can get some direction on that plan by reading this article.
• 5 Ways Negative Reviews are Good for Business (Small Business SEM): Matt McGee explains why negative reviews aren’t too bad after all. Just make sure you don’t get mentioned on Consumerist or Boing Boing. 😉 (Of course, if you get there, it’s probably because your customers exhausted all avenues, which you should’ve been abreast of earlier!)
• Online Reputation Management in the Future (WebProNews): Chris Crum interviews several experts about the possible diminishing impact of reputation management services — that is, when everyone has a reputation management issue, is it going to be less of a concern?
• The Online Reputation Management Guide (Outspoken Media): Outspoken Media has produced an incredible online reputation guide. Rhea Drysdale talks about the nuances of assessing, building, tracking, and monitoring your reputation online.

Content Development/Marketing

• Writing Content for the Buyer’s Decision Journey (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni talks about the buying funnel and gives good examples of companies that do it well.
• 10 Secrets for Creating Viral Content (The Buzz Bin): It’s all about others — NOT yourself.
• The Doctor McCoy Guide to Healing Sick Content (Copyblogger): What do Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy of Star Trek and good writers have in common? Mark Dykeman offers a few parallels that just might get you thinking of your article-writing (or blogging) strategy.
• Beyond Headlines: How to Get Your Audience to Read Every Word (Copyblogger): Dave Navarro’s article on Copyblogger explains how to entice an audience and force them to read every word. The idea is to communicate similar tastes, triggering a sense of need, and promising valuable information.
• 30 Simple Ways of Improving Bounce Rate and Conversion Rate (SEOptimise): This article has some great ways to convert visitors into members, buyers, or regular users of your site. Are you listening?
• 12 Types of Content Strategies SEOs Should Know and Use (Search Engine People): If you want to build traffic and links to your site, you might want to get some ideas from Jeff Quipp. Hint: this type of post is in the article, but that’s not really why I do it. At the end of the day, it’s great to provide a valuable resource for me and for you!
• 9 Strategies for Finding Incredible Content (Search Engine Journal): This post on Search Engine Journal actually proposes some pretty unknown sites that you can leverage for article content inspiration.
• Practical Guide to Finding Link Bait Inspiration (SEO Smarty): Ann Smarty presents a pretty good guide for content inspiration, but not just any type of content: her guide gives you ideas on finding great link bait topics.
• The Psychology of a Linkbait (Search Engine Journal): Loren Baker paraphrases this article by saying, “You can increase your chances of linking success by remembering one simple rule : the best links come from real human beings. Here are ways to appeal to those real human emotions in linkbaiting.”
• Why Most Get Content Marketing Wrong (The Future Buzz): It’s a matter of formatting your content properly. If you miss the ball, you will fail.
• Top 10 Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Strategy Fails (Conversation Agent): Might as well try to get it right, right? Let Valeria help.
• The 10 Commandments of Content Marketing (Social Media Explorer): I like Kat French. She explains why your content marketing strategy might just not work in a nice list format with good descriptions.
• 49 Creative Ways You Can Profit from Content Marketing (Copyblogger): To be ahead of the game, you should be creative about it. Here are 49 things you can think about right now.

Web Development

• The “Just Create Compelling and Useful Content” Lie (Sebastian’s Pamphlets): Sebastian highlights the elements of a successful website. Hint: it’s not just great content alone.
• Things to Ask Before You Redo Your Website (Seth Godin): Seth asks thought-provoking questions that are to be considered in your next website redesign.

Video

• Online Video for Business: The Three Types of Business Video (ReelSEO): We’ve heard about viral videos, but that’s only one type of business video. There are two other types of videos, according to Daniel Sevitt. He goes into each type by explaining what they are and providing metrics for success.
• How to Succeed on YouTube (Search Engine Marketing Group): If you’ve been looking for some good ideas for how to achieve viral success on YouTube, read what Sheena Melwani says from experience.
• 5 Important Web Video Lessons for Small Business Owners (Mashable/OPEN Forum): How are you going to make your video stick? Josh Catone highlights 5 videos and explains the lessons learned.
• How Video Promotion Launched a Rap Career: A Complete Guide (Shoemoney): This article might be specific to a rapper’s evolving career, but there are general video promotion ideas in here as well.
• 34 Ways to Use YouTube for Business (WebWorkerDaily): These tips are broken down into expertise, advertising, and customer service.

SEO: Strategy

• The SEM Toolbox: 79 Tools and Tips Every Search Marketer Should Have (SEO Contrarian): Ari Ozick provides a list of the best tools ever needed to do your job as a search engine marketer. Categories include backup tools, backlink discovery tools, link management tools, competitive research tools, keyword tools, domain tools, and a whole lot more.
• SEO Hierarchy of Needs (Bruce Clay Blog): What step are you on when it comes to your SEO needs? What must you do next? This article by Virginia Nussey features a graphic that mimics Maslow’s hierarchy with an SEO spin.
• Search Engine Ranking Factors (SEOmoz): Every year, SEOmoz comes out with a list of search engine ranking factors, which is incredibly valuable if you do anything remotely related to SEO or search engine marketing. Of course, it’s not perfect since the algorithm is kept under wraps, but this information has been guesstimated by trial and error.
• Big List of Search Engine Ranking Factors (Huomah): David Harry revisits the discussion of the factors that he believes affects search engine rankings. And since he just came out with the recent training course SEO Dojo, which has been an incredible success, it’s a good idea to read this and listen.
• What Aspects of SEO Should You Be Spending Most of Your Time On? (SEO Book): Peter Da Vanzo gives a good beginner’s guide for how to get into SEO for your new website.
• Google is the Other Woman: The Relationship Algorithm (Foot in Mouth): This article uses an interesting parallel to judge how Google judges your site for algorithmic preference, but I actually would contend that all search engines typically follow the same rules of thumb. I love the analogies!
• Future-Proof Your SEO (Huomah): Here’s an article which will actually likely be outdated in a few years, but I thought it was still good enough for the purposes of understanding the search landscape today with regards to what works and what doesn’t in search engine optimization.
• The 100+ Ranking Variables Google Uses, and Why You Shouldn’t Care (SEO Book): In January, Aaron Wall predicted that search marketing success will come from engaging people. This is absolutely starting to take hold, especially as people actually talk about their favorite websites and search engines respond in kind. Twitter integration in search results, anyone?
• Big Project, Small Budget: Where to Begin Your SEO Campaign (Search Engine Guide): If you are trying to SEO your site, you may want to start thinking about the areas you should put more emphasis on–perhaps because your budget constraints may limit you to only one of these areas.
• 12 Easy Mistakes that Plague Newcomers to the SEO Field (SEOmoz): Even though this is a basic article on SEO, sometimes even seasoned professionals lose sight of this stuff. You can count on the “reciprocal linking” (read: link exchanges) to be a big mishap in “established SEO firms” from the amount of emails I get with that request daily across all my blogs. UGH 🙂
• SEO for Large eCommerce Sites (AudetteMedia): Adam Audette is the SEO for Zappos. That means he knows a fair bit about optimizing billion-dollar business websites. He explores the techniques he uses for his big client in this article.
• Creating a Sweet High Value Keyword List in 5 Minutes (SEO Book): Aaron Wall shows you how to create a high-value keyword research list in 5 minutes, then features a video on how to actually see what you just did.
• 5 Free SEO Tools You’re Probably Not Using Yet (Search Engine Marketing Group): Here’s my question. Have you even heard of these yet?
• How to Optimize for Conversion in Organic Search Results (Search Engine Land): SEO should be ROI-centric. If that’s not on your agenda, read this article and start thinking along the lines of driving real conversions.
• 7 Rules for Writing URLs (Small Business SEM): If you do anything related to search engine marketing, understanding the URL structure and how to actually optimize it is important. Matt McGee offers tips on how to do this.
• How Using Google AdWords Can Be the Best SEO Tool in Your Arsenal (RedFly Marketing): Dave Davis presents some pretty invaluable information on the potential for Google AdWords to be an incredible asset for search engine optimization. Yes, you read that right.
• How to Up Your SEO Income by a Factor of 10 (SEO Book): Ari Ozick’s guest post for SEO Book is a darn good one – you won’t know until you test. It’s really that simple.
• SEO Best Practices: New Policies Based on Updated Correlation Data (SEOmoz): It’s time to start reevaluating your SEO tactics. SEOmoz has looked at what works and reported on their findings.
• 5 SEO Essentials: Charting Effective Search Engine Optimization (Online Marketing Blog): Dana Larson’s approach toward effective SEO is great. Most people forget about that in such a social media centric world.
• 6 Key Tactics for Organic Success (Search Engine Guide): Jen Laycock provides six great tactics for organic success: keywords, content, code, optimization, links, and patience. Yes, patience is a big one!

SEO: Information

• Small Business SEO: Costs, Expectations, Realities (Small Business SEM): This isn’t a “SEO how to” article. We always see enough of those. What this is is a good article by Matt McGee on what you should expect when you actually buy SEO consulting.
• 5 Tips for Avoiding Deceptive SEO Companies (Small Business Trends): Since we’re talking about SEO, we might as well tell you what to look for so that you do NOT do business with some of these companies. Look for reputable companies if you ever need to focus on search engine optimization. Your rankings depend on it.
• Setting Up an SEO Shop Overnight! (High Rankings): Jill Whalen rants about the “SEO shops” that give SEO the snake oil bad name. There actually are good SEOs out there.
• 8 Short Steps to Forecast and Estimate SEO ROI (SEO ROI): Want ROI for your SEO efforts? Gab Goldenberg offers 8 steps on how exactly that can be achieved.
• You Don’t Need SEO to Rank in Google (Sugarrae): Rae explains that SEO by itself simply isn’t the key to high rankings. Good content and marketing is really the key; SEO is just a secondary requirement.

Link Building

• Get Your Link Building Requests Answered (Dream Systems Media): Matt Siltala writes an incredibly valuable article that answers how to get people to link to you once they’ve already established rapport with your competitors. He also brings in four experts who weigh in on the question.
• Why Link Building May Not Work (Best SEO Blog): Sometimes your link building practices won’t work. Michael Martinez explains why beginning about 1/3 of the way down in this article.
• How to Get Backlinks (Internet Marketing Techniques and Theories): Leo calls this post “very long.” I think I agree with him. 🙂
• Secrets of How to Escape the Link Building Trap Now (SEO Theory): If you don’t want to build links, you might pursue these other opportunities to build links that don’t violate any guidelines. There’s also a service review in here for a link building program run by a pretty well known guy in the SEO space.
• Buy Text Link Ads with these 101 Sneaky Tips (Search Engine Journal): Gab Goldenberg tries to stay under the radar when buying text links with 101 ideas that hopefully won’t get you caught.
• Indispensable Link Building Applications (Wiep.net): Wiep Knol has a toolbox filled to the brim of great link building applications. If you do any link building at all, make sure to familiarize yourself with these applications.
• Link Building Techniques, Interactive Agency Approach (Zeta Interactive): I get about 4-5 link building requests across multiple web properties a day. When reading this article, I realize that for 99.9% of these requests, none of these techniques (personalized requests, transparency, knowing the target website, etc.) are employed at all. Is that really so difficult? I guess it is when you outsource link building to interns.
• A Big Bunch of Link Building Ideas (Search Engine Land): Debra Mastaler is a link building genius and when she talks, I always listen. In this article, she explores the consequences of actually linking out to other websites and what you can do to build other types of links.
• Link Building from A to Z (SEOmoz): Wiep Knol is one of the foremost link building experts and has covered an entire alphabet of ways to get new links.
• 10 Goals for Link Building Campaigns: Moving Beyond “Get More Links” (Search Engine Land): Garrett French writes a great in-depth guide on how you can build links, suggesting countless tactics and link prospect sources.
• Link Building Evaluation Journal (Search Engine Journal): Building links to a website? How could you enhance your link portfolio? Dave Snyder suggests different ideas for different metrics of the link, be them the age of a domain, the anchor text, or the relevant authority of the link page.
• 10 Link Building and Tracking Tools for SEO (Online Marketing Blog): Got links? Start testing them. This Top Rank Marketing blog post explores ten possible tools from which to do this.
• 11 Effective, Efficient Ways to Use Limited Time to Build Links (Search Engine Land): If you’re tasked with building links but yet do not know how to manage your time, you might want to read this and follow Debra Mastaler’s suggestions.
• Link Mixology: The 12 Kinds of Links Your Site Needs (Michelle MacPhearson): Michelle MacPhearson writes a good point on what kinds of links you should be getting if you intend to market your website.
• 21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries (Search Engine Land): Not all link building tips and tricks have to be Link Building 101. Here are 21 great advanced tactics that can help you get a little more out of link building.

PPC

• PPC Advertising Pitfalls: Don’t Just Do What Simon Says (Search Cowboys): Lisa Myers talks about the common pitfalls when engaging in a Google AdWords PPC campaign and explains that most people fall into these because Google AdWords is so easy to set up that many business owners waste money every day.
• The Golden Rules of Keyword Research (SEOptimise): Choosing keywords for PPC should not be too difficult, as long as your keywords are relevant, specific, local, smart, sneaky, and flexible. Explanations within.
• Top 5 Mistakes Made by PPC Newcomers (Latitude Group): Maybe you’ve decided to go into PPC marketing. If you do, don’t make these mistakes in Google AdWords.
• When Pay Per Click is NOT Right for You (Search Engine Journal): PPC? What’s that all about? Brian Carter explains why PPC is an asset and why it might be detrimental for you. If you have no idea what this is and might consider trying it, read this article first.
• How to Write PPC Ad Copy (Search Engine People): If you’ve ever done Google AdWords or any other PPC, you know that the best copy is important to drive clickthroughs. Just HOW to optimize those messages is the subject of this article.
• 6 Habits of Highly Effective PPC Managers (NVI Solutions): If you do any Pay Per Click, you should possess these six traits at the minimum, which include the desire to test and tweak, leveraging your web analytics, and staying informed of policy updates.
• Writing Your Best PPC Ads (Search Cowboys): If you’ve ever done Pay Per Click marketing, you might want to follow some of the tips Kate Morris offers on this post.
• SEM Training Strategy: Overcoming Common Mistakes (SEO Book): Aaron Wall explains how to maximize your PPC and SEO campaigns.
• How to Prevent Competitors from Seeing Your AdWords Ads (Jennifer Slegg): If you are really the competitive type and don’t want your competitors to see your Google AdWords ads, take Jen’s advice and lock ’em out!
• 9 Tips to Write Effective Google AdWords Copy (Search Engine Journal): Saad Kamal knows his Google AdWords. Do you? 🙂
• 7 Incredibly Valuable but Underused Free Tools for PPC Marketers (Search Engine Land): Brad Geddes talks about some of the most useful tools to help boost your Pay Per Click campaigns.

Affiliate Marketing

• Cut the Fat: Some Quick Tips to Instantly Gain Profit (Jonathan Volk): Jonathan Volk’s gives affiliate marketing tips based on his own trial and error.
• Are You Ready for an Affiliate Program? (NVI Solutions): I usually talk about affiliate marketing on the hows of setting it up. But what if you’re a merchant who is considering it? Then read this and see if you’re ready.
• The Most Powerful Way to Presell Any Product or Service (Dosh Dosh): Dosh Dosh discusses the way to lure potential buyers into buying your product like all affiliate marketers should really be doing.
• PPC Affiliate Marketing 101 (Jonathan Volk): In case you were new to the affiliate game, here’s what you can do to get started with affiliate marketing using Pay Per Click.
• Interview with Rae Hoffman AKA Sugarrae (SEO Book): Rae Hoffman talks to Aaron Wall about her success as an affiliate marketer. This interview is pretty damn good.

Analytics

• 6 Tools Every Google Analytics User Should Have (Unofficial Google Analytics Blog): I’ve never heard of any of these Google Analytics tools before!
• Google Analytics Mega Post: 23 Google Analytics Tips and Tweaks (Search Engine People): Google Analytics out of the box is a powerful package. You can tweak output even further, though. To get started, read this article.
• The Complete Google Analytics Power User Guide (VKI Studios): This is the most in-depth Google Analytics user guide that I’ve ever seen.
• Using Analytics to Measure SEO Success (Search Engine Land): Jill Whalen explains that rankings aren’t good success metrics. Instead, focus on your analytics. Here’s how.
• Google Analytics for Local Search (seOverflow):  This is how you can use Google Analytics for some great local optimization.  This article is choc full of great detail, and while it’s local-focused, there’s good actionable insight for anyone using Google Analytics in some way.

Usability

• Is Your Website Easy to Buy From? Tips You Can Test to Improve Your Site’s Checkout Process (Conversion Room): Want to make sales on your website? You better hope it’s usable. Here are some areas you can test to find out if your site is good for the average buyer.
• Are You Guilty of Crimes Against Usability? Let the Jury Decide (Search Engine Guide): In this usability blog post, Stoney deGeyter equates your customers with the jury. Business owners should study those juries to find out what judgments they are passing on your site.
• Why Usability and SEO Go Hand in Hand (Search Engine Land): Search engines like usable websites, just like people do. It’s in your best interest to appreciate the value of this.

Landing Pages

• 9 Effective Tips for a Better Landing Page (Search Engine Journal): Saad Kamal offers good tips for great landing pages.
• 30+ Principles to a Better Landing Page Design (Landing Page Optimization): You’ve read about the types of landing pages, but how do you actually design one? You can follow the tactics tried by people who already have found success.
• Landing Page Types (Lyris HQ): This article presents a concise list of landing page types, from PPC landing pages to transactional landing pages.
• 7 Tips to Increasing Landing Page Conversions (Search Engine Journal): Lauren Vaccarello explains how to craft the content on your landing page to actually see conversions. One great tip: avoid marketing speak and use simple English instead.

Local/Mobile Search

• Mobile Search Guide (cellphones.org): Now more and more people are using their cell phones and searching on their favorite search engine. My phone is old as heck but even I do it. But if you’re a website creator, have you optimized for mobile search? If not, perhaps you should, since your visitors might end up going elsewhere.
• Local Search Ranking Factors (David Mihm): Just like there are SEO ranking factors, there are also local search ranking factors.  David Mihm gives you an exhaustive list of them for your perusal.
• A Closer Look at the Local Search Data Providers (getListed.org): Any local business presence will want to make sure its information is accurate online.  Take a look at the providers listed to figure out where your information needs to be updated.
• Blocking and Tackling: 10 Fundamentals of Local SEO (Search Engine Land): David Mihm, our resident local expert, provides a basic list of what you should do as a local business to get ranked in search engines.

Personal Branding

• How to Start or Start Over Building Your Personal Brand (Skelliewag): Skellie talks about why a brand is important and how you can do it.
• How to Build Your Personal Brand on YouTube (Mashable): Dan Schawbel is a personal branding expert and shows you how to build a strong YouTube brand. Really, this is a pretty good general YouTube how-to article, but he ties it into the personal branding element, which works for me.
• SEO Tips for Building Your Personal Brand (Search Engine Land): I don’t really consider these “SEO” tips, as they’re more social media centric. But they’re great for building your brand, that’s for sure.
• 7 Ways to Land Great Consulting Work While in Between Jobs (Personal Branding Blog): How to build your brand when finding a job, according to Monica O’Brien!
• What a Personal Brand is NOT (Tom Peters): It is NOT a perk, among other things. You have the privilege of a personal brand. What are you going to make of it?
• 50 Ways to Make Limoncello When You’ve Been Laid Off (Conversation Agent): Valeria Maltoni highlights an incredibly inspirational video and gives you some great ideas to build your brand when you’ve been laid off — and I’ll add when you’re not. You should always be building your personal brand.

Building a Brand/Brand Evangelism

• Checklist: Develop a Successful Advocacy Program (Web Strategist): Jeremiah covers some of the other aspects of a brand ambassador program, detailing the nuances and the like.
• 19 Presence Management Chores You Could Do Every Day (Chris Brogan): Chris Brogan shows how you can be involved in the conversations around you — tangibly.
• What Do You Love? (Cranial Soup): This article is about marketing coming from the perspective of the consumer. Consumers have a duty to market their favorite products or risk losing them from store shelves. Marketers should do this for their favorite products for free. I would. (Call it brand evangelism if you will.)
• How to Create Advocates for Your Business (Logic+Emotion): Brand evangelism. Customer Advocacy. It’s all the same. Now how do you actually get there?

Public Relations

• The State of PR, Marketing, and Communications: You are the Future (Brian Solis): This is the longest “blog post” in the history of the world but it is one of the most brilliant things I have read in all of 2009.
• PR Gone Bad: How to Anger Bloggers and Hose Your Client (Jonathan Fields): This story by Jonathan was so good that I even wrote a story about it which was published to Brian Solis’s blog as well.
• Shift Your PR from Push to Pull (The Future Buzz): Why should you move to a pull PR strategy? Adam Singer gives you the lowdown.
• 3 Steps for Effectively Using Social Media for PR (Online Marketing Blog): Social is everywhere, and you can use it in your public relations efforts. In fact, you really should.
• 25 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a PR Firm (Idea Grove): These questions test competency, prioritization, cost-efficiency, and compatibility.
• How to Use Social Media in Your PR Pitch (Mashable): Interaction is key, according to Susan Payton.
• The Art of the Pitch (Jonathan Volk): Want to pitch a busy blogger? Follow these steps. This is a short read with good insights.
• How to Woo a Blogger (and get coverage) (Outspoken Media): This is an excellent guidebook into what you should to in order to get a blogger to talk about you.  If the proposed content fits the blogger’s audience and you follow these rules, you very well may see more mentions of your clients’ products/services in blog posts.
• How to Write Effective Press Releases in the Age of Twitter (OPEN Forum): It’s not really just the “age of Twitter” – it’s the “age of social.” That said, where’s your multimedia? Is it in your pitch?
• A Poor Man’s Guide to Finding Influencers (The Buzz Bin): If you’re not going to buy a Cision subscription to find the bloggers and people interested in talking about you, try this guide to get you to locating who to reach out to.

Community Management/Engagement

• 5 Myths of Community Management (Altitude Branding): This is a great post on what a community manager REALLY does. Newsflash: it’s not only about walking the halls of social media sites.
• Community Manager Responsibilities and Goals (Connie Bensen): Connie writes a great post about community management (revised from July 2008).
• Social Media Community Manager Job Description (aimClear): Here’s an “official description” for a social media community manager.
• Community Engagement (The Buzz Bin): Geoff Livingston talks about engagement as discussed in his book, Now is Gone, and how it has evolved in the last 1.5 years.
• How to Kick Start a Community: An Ongoing List (Web Strategist): Jeremiah suggests some great ways to build a real online community in your little neck of the woods.
• 10 Rules for Increasing Community Engagement (Mashable): A big point that Leah Betancourt makes here is the emphasis on user generated content (UGC). Other important points are identifying and nurturing power users and welcoming newbies.

General Online Marketing

• Definitive Guide to Word of Mouth Marketing (Samir Balwani): Samir Balwani writes an awesome guide on word of mouth marketing, broken down and categorized into sections (why it’s important, elements of WOMM, web influence, what elements facilitate sharing, campaign tracking, and more!)
• How to Send a Personal Email (Seth Godin): Seth Godin writes about email etiquette. My favorite? #14 (especially due to all the LinkedIn spammers who have been targeting me as of late).
• 6 Powerful Principles of Persuasion for Influential Internet Marketing (Winning the Web): In a post emphasizing the parallels of the book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini, Gyutae Park applies these principles to Internet Marketing and explains why you need to apply them in any online marketing campaign.
• 6 Buzzworthy Laws All Internet Marketers Should Understand (The Future Buzz): Do you know what the long tail means? Probably. How about Metcalfe’s Law or The Streisand Effect?
• 11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action (Dosh Dosh): If you’re marketing to individuals online, you should target your messaging to the three brains of the human body. Don’t understand what I just said? Read the article.
• 6 Fool-Proof Steps to Make More Money With Your Website (Dosh Dosh): Dosh Dosh wrote another great article on how to monetize your most popular web pages. This is great for anyone, from the affiliate marketer to the SEO to the small online shop.
• “Don’t Put Your Eggs in One Basket” is Bad Advice for Internet Marketers (Winning the Web): While I argue that you must not spread yourself too thin, I actually am going to take Gyutae’s advice on this one.
• 3 Reasons Why it Pays to Go Niche (Literally) (Winning the Web): Gyutae Park explains that some markets are saturated. You’ll be more successful if you focus on niche markets instead. (Good luck starting a brand new social media blog tomorrow!)
• 11 Internet Marketing Skills that Should be Second Nature (Conversation Marketing): Are you well versed in internet marketing? Being knowledgeable in social media doesn’t cut it. You should also know these 11 tips as suggested by Ian Lurie.
• Social Impacts Every Customer Touchpoint (Web Strategist): This article touches upon the different elements of online advertising (and then some) and highlights market maturity and brand impact.
• Internet Marketing Isn’t a Buffet: Why You Need Quality Traffic Over Quantity (Winning the Web): Quality is more important than quantity, and Gyutae explains why this is the case.
• 10 Things You Can Do in the Next 60 Days to Market Your Business and Close More Sales (Small Business Trends): This article was talking about how to end 2009, but since you’re probably reading it for the first time now, how about using these to begin 2010?

Everything Else Under the Sun

• Being Socially Aware: Because a Smile and Fast Talk Don’t Work on the Internet (ob81): For a successful marketing effort, the bottom line, according to Howard O’Berry, is that you need to be socially aware of your surroundings and know who to pitch to. He even refers to a case study that impacted him to drive this point home.
• 12 Steps to Upgrade Your Business (Small Business Trends): Here are some great ideas to upgrade your business, from being more approachable to learning a new web technology to NETWORKING! woo!
• Rage Against the Sales Letter (Jonathan Fields): The long sales letter is a tactic that you may not really appreciate, but some marketers swear by it. Read why Jonathan Fields considers long copy a must-have.
• Business Ethics & Mistakes You Should Avoid! (Tony Adam): Tony Adam explores some business ethics moves that you should avoid. Some include reporting your competitors, burning bridges, and more.
• Your Customers’ Hierarchy of Need (Ignite Social Media): Ignite Social Media writes a great post on how customers relate to brands using Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
• How to Identify and Deal with Different Types of Clients (Smashing Magazine): If you’ve ever had a nitpicker or family friend as a client, what are you to do when issues arise? Smashing Magazine has your answer.
• 9 Reasons Your Online Business Will Fail (Shoemoney): Discipline and focus are two of the nine reasons.

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Closing Notes

The year 2009 was incredibly huge for me. I gave birth to my first child, a little boy, who is my pride and joy. I published a social media marketing book. I’ve made great relationships, big and small, and I’ve worked on some fantastic projects that I could have only dreamed of just a few years ago.

In the past decade, I’ve graduated college, married the love of my life, switched careers to find my passion, and now I live through it every day. Every morning, I wake up excited to see what the day will bring. I’m aiming higher for the next 10 years — let’s see if I can top this. I’m truly excited to see what next year will bring.

May you all have a happy, successful, and wonderful 2010.