Once the SEOs figured out the secret to early versions of Google’s algorithm, the search engine rankings essentially became a free-for-all. Links were spammed onto any site possible, regardless of how relevant they may have been to a given company’s website. Cheap, spammy websites were easily ranking over established and relevant businesses just because they had more links. Google’s seemingly “impossible-to-crack” algorithm was being figured out by just about everybody. Over time, Google realized that to serve up the best search results, changes would have to take place.

Now we fast-forward to today. The organic search landscape has seen almost a complete upheaval of sorts, an absolute improvement over just a few years ago. With what Google codenamed Panda, a brand new algorithm was rolled out that focused on much more than the number of links a website had. No longer are the spammy websites ranking. In fact, many of them have been de-indexed from Google all together. However, when Panda came, so did a large amount of SEO changes.

SEO changes actually occur all the time. With over 500 updates per year to Google’s algorithms (http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2011/09/Eric-Schmidt-Testimony.pdf), the SEO world is constantly trying to stay on top of things. Within the past few years, these algorithm changes have been vastly different than previous updates. Now, instead of focusing on just a few keywords to rank for, a shift is being made towards what is known as “inbound marketing.”

Inbound marketing is not about simply optimizing your website for Google. It is actually a much larger strategy – a mix of SEO, PR, social media, and online marketing in general. Basically, it means getting your company out on the Internet by any relevant means possible, and thus, establishing your company as a given industry’s expert and increasing overall traffic to your site.

In this graphic from SEOmoz, we see many great ways that inbound marketing can be done. Some of them are absolute essentials, no matter what industry you may be in. Such methods like blogging, content marketing, press releases, social media, and link building (still an important piece to the puzzle) are now pillars of any inbound marketing campaign. Other methods, like webinars, videos, forums, and apps are also great traffic-driving means in a wide array of industries. At the end of the day, it is all about getting your company out there that sheds as much positive light as possible to your business.

In conclusion, inbound marketing is here to stay. With the rise in Web 2.0 technologies, there will undoubtedly be an upward trend in inbound marketing opportunities. If a well-thought-out strategy can be constructed by factoring in various relevant inbound marketing techniques, your company should reap the rewards on Google for years to come.

In the case that a website does not already have a sitemap (or possibly an old sitemap that needs updating), it’s very easy to get started. There are countless online sitemap generators out there where you simply plug in your website’s URL and a sitemap is automatically generated. The one I prefer the most is SitemapDoc because it features a ton of additional options that many other online generators do not, like the ability to index images (get ranked on Google Images!), adjusting the update frequency and page priority on the fly, and edit existing sitemaps.

Once a sitemap is generated (typically saved as sitemap.xml), it is time to upload it to the root directory of your website.  Once on the server, it’s finally time to submit (or re-submit) to Google via their Webmaster Tools. Once in there, you should be able to keep track of the total URLs in the sitemap, and how many of those URLs are actually indexed in Google. After that, you should be all set! Just check back in Webmaster Tools in about a week to make sure your pages were indexed.

There also used to be a location-based sitemap known as Geo Sitemaps that heaviled tied in to Google Places, however Google recently dropped its support of them.

“Over the past 6-9 months, I've been getting the sense that there's something new in Google's algorithm - a metric or set of metrics that looks for some form of authenticity in a site and passion in the content created on a page.”

Rand speaks about passion factors playing a role in this change but doesn't theorize how Google may using the information in rankings.

The overall concept makes complete sense. Sometimes powerhouse websites produce low quality content just as low powered personal blogs can sometimes produce extraordinarily useful information. Google has to account for this in order to ensure the best results are shown when someone searches.

Here are two ways Google may be accomplishing this goal. 

The Starbucks Effect

Standard Deviation of Article Quality

As for what this all means: well, I think Rand said it best "if writing passionate, authentic content on more personal, unique sites can earn more mojo in search, I'd say that's a win for everyone." Cheers to Google for finding new ways to unearth these great pieces of content hidding throughout the internet. 

If you haven't logged in over the last couple days it'll immediately ask you to update the new “Skills” section. This is where you're able to add up to 50 targeted keywords into your profile.

LinkedIn Skills

The initial popup only has room to add three skills. Once the three are added, you will need to scroll down into your profile to the skills section to add additional keywords.

Adding New Skills

Once you click "Edit" or "+ Add a skill" it will take you to the page similar to the screenshot below:

Add the skills you’d like to associate with yourself and then save your changes. Take a look at your updated profile and try hovering over a few of the skills you've just added.

Hovering Over Skills

When you roll over any skill it will pull extra information about the keyword. Once you click on any particular skill it will lead to the new "Skills & Expertise" beta pages.

LinkedIn Skills & Expertise Pages

These "Skills & Expertise" pages are a great compilation of useful info. The page highlights authorities about the keyword, associated LinkedIn groups, current job openings, statistics, as well as related terms and companies. It’s the perfect place to get an overview of the LinkedIn landscape for any certain industry.

Here's a look at the layout of the new beta pages currently being tested:

Right in the center of the page is a section highlighting industry authorities along with links to their LinkedIn profiles.

LinkedIn SEO Professionals

So what does it take to be one of the featured LinkedIn professionals? From what I can tell it's a combination of factors. My first thought was it relied heavily on number of recommendations. This doesn't seem to be the leading factor judging by the total count of the top four people who came up for the keyword "SEO".

Rand Fishkin: 12 Recommendations

Michael Gray: 19 Recommendations

Jeremy Schoemaker: 7 Recommendations

Andy Beal: 35 Recommendations

Not a great correlation so I then turned my attention to a larger scale measure of authority. Just recently LinkedIn became one of the sources in the algorithm for Klout. It's possible LinkedIn used the final score as an overall measure of that person's online authority.

Rand Fishkin: 78 Klout Score

Michael Gray: 71 Klout Score

Jeremy Schoemaker: 61 Klout Score

Andy Beal: 69 Klout Score

Close, but it's not perfect. One thing each of these profiles share is they all contain over 500 connections, but I highly doubt total connections is the end-all calculation. I suspect there are many areas that come into play. The number of connections, number of recommendations, power/authority of connections and recommendations, user's activity on LinkedIn, profile page content, and possibly an outside factor like Klout score. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the top few professionals on high traffic keywords get hand-picked by LinkedIn. Having Rand and Michael leading the SEO list gives it instant credibility. Either way, working your way onto the first page of an authority list would be a great goal for personal reputation and branding purposes.

I would certainly recommend checking out the new changes and adding keywords to your profile. It'll help your optimization for LinkedIn searches, and who knows...maybe you'll be the next top professional in your own industry Skills & Expertise page.

SEO is a process that has been around for over a decade. It involves optimizing your website through various methods and tactics that “naturally” increase its rankings on search engine results pages. This is one of the more prevalent methods of Internet Marketing, considering there are literally billions of searches per day on Google alone.

SMO is a fairly new practice; it involves the optimization of all social media or networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. As the popularity of these social outlets continues to increase, so does the general feeling that a company must have a strong (optimized) social presence to support any sort of marketing they may want to do. A strong presence is created by building up the number of followers on a social networking page, and actually engaging and interacting with them to the point where they want to stay up to date with your current events.

Of course, a question will arise: which one is more important? It sounds like such a simple question, but in reality it is quite the opposite.  The two should actually go hand-in-hand. Believe it or not, SMO actually plays a big part in SEO. SEO provides long-term growth and potential, but with a properly executed SMO plan, customers can continually keep track of everything you have going on without solely having to rely on search engines. It should not be mistaken as a substitute for SEO, but rather another powerful marketing tool that adds to your online presence and brand recognition while driving targeted traffic to your website, just like other practices such as pay per click advertising.

According to Google, Place Search is "A new kind of local search result that organizes the world’s information around places. We’ve clustered search results around specific locations so you can more easily make comparisons and decide where to go. Say you’re looking for that great barbecue restaurant with live music. With Place Search here’s what you’ll get:

The new results are marked with red pins, and each one is a unique restaurant with relevant information and links from across the web."

In addition, Google also states that:

"One of the great things about our approach is that it makes it easier to find a comprehensive view of each place. In our new layout you’ll find many more relevant links on a single results page—often 30 or 40. Instead of doing eight or 10 searches, often you’ll get to the sites you’re looking for with just one search. In our testing Place Search saves people an average of two seconds on searches for local information."

In the next few days, Place Search will be available globally in more than 40 languages.  

For example, searching for the term "baseball" will display results for "Bank of America" while typing in the first two letters "b" and "a", however as you add two more letters to spell "base," relevant baseball search results start showing up without ever having to hit the search button.

Google's update is somewhat of a drastic change, drifting away from their once clutter-free and fast-loading environment, and now heavily relying on JavaScript. However, it also shows there is more to a search engine than simply relevant results and fast page-load speed.

Google lists three main features to help real-time searchers find the information they are looking for:

• Geographic Refinement: this feature allows searchers to narrow their search results to a specific region or in their immediate vicinity.  Maybe you want to know which bands are playing around you tonight, or how much damage to expect from that killer storm in your area?
• Conversations View: by utilizing the "full conversation" feature, users can expand a single twitter or facebook post into the entire conversation surrounding that post.
• "Updates" on Google Alerts: users can now set their Google Alerts up to alert them if the term targeted is mentioned in a conversation

This is just another sign pointing to the future of social media and real time results.

We tested the term "Football" on both search engines. Yahoo Top 10 listings now pretty much serve the same content as Bing's Top 10.

Check out the footer for Yahoo! Search as well, which now states that it's "Powered by Bing."

Industry expert Silverback Strategies will be presenting an educational seminar for DC Area businesses on how the Internet has changed the way people shop and look for information.

Business owners understand that in order to grow their company, they need to target customers. However with more and more people going online to research and purchase goods or services, business owners must also understand the importance of web presence and leveraging Internet marketing, especially SEO Management and Pay Per Click Management.

Silverback Strategies, one of the leading U.S. online marketing firms will hold the “2009 Internet Marketing Seminar” for DC Area companies on October 8, 2009 in Alexandria, Virginia.  Silverback Strategies will be presenting important statistics and reporting from Google to help business owners and management gain a better understanding on how the market has evolved.  Companies that attend the engaging seminar will learn where consumers spend most of their time searching for products and services; they will also learn how online marketing can help grow their business.

“More and more people are looking online first whether it’s for information or to purchase products or services.  I think that the statistics and reports from Google will help the seminar attendees gain a better understanding to properly attract new customers or members,” said Kurt Lambert, Account Manager, Silverback Strategies.  “With the seminar, businesses will definitely learn how to save more on their marketing budget by cutting back on ineffective tactics that don’t provide strong return on investments.”

About Silverback Strategies:

Based in Alexandria, Virginia, Silverback Strategies partners with businesses large and small to provide state-of-the-art web design, search engine marketing and pay per click campaign strategy, consulting and execution. The company is privately held.  For media inquiries, speaking engagement and interview requests or additional company information, please visit: http://www.silverbackstrategies.com/ or call (888) 434-7775.