by Jennifer Laycock

I scan hundreds of feeds and read dozens of articles each day so you don’t have to. From building a slow and natural link profile to the ethics of sponsored blog posts, find out which articles I dubbed as must-read for the small business crowd today.

• I love John Jantsch’s post from last week about how social media is a tool and not a religion. John hits the nail on the head when he points out the need to use common sense while exploring social media outlets but not letting fear get in the way of exploration. I hear from far too many small businesses who are terrified of getting into social media because they think they’ll “do it wrong” and get themselves in trouble. There’s nothing wrong with finding ways to use these tools to build your business, nothing. Just listen to folks like John and remember to use your common sense.
• While I’m not much of a paid search guru, I’ve always been a huge fan of the idea of using paid search to test keywords, campaigns and offers before rolling them out to an entire web site. Greg Meyers has put together a great little post offering up some input on how you can use paid search to test new campaigns. It’s a quick, but valuable read.
• Peter Kim has compiled a list of social media predictions for 2009 from some of the best and brightest in the industry. You can download the full spectrum of thoughts on 2009 social media changes in PDF form. It’s a good read and has both expected predictions and surprising ones. Overall, I’d wager any company looking to expand or explore social media marketing next year should give it at least a quick read.
• If you’re trying to catch up on some of the great viral videos from this year, you’ll want to check out Time Magazine’s list of the Top 10 Viral Videos of 2008. Now I’m not personally sure these would count as the “top ten” in my book, especially since I had never even heard of some of them, but I must admit I’m fighting the temptation to head to Expedia.com after watching “Where the Hell is Matt” again.
• Heard a great comment from Todd Friesan at SES last week about how he’d rather have one really great link than a ton of average links. A simple truth, but one forgotten by far too many online marketers. If you’re working on your link building plan for next year, you may want to read over a post called “The Secret to Making Every Link Count for Your SEO Rankings” over at Winning the Web.
• Sometimes the commentary on an issue is what leads you back to the issue itself. (One of the joys of social media.) I ran across Amber Naslund’s awesome post on The Sanctity of Social Media” today and then had to go read about the Chris Brogan controversy that started it. The original fuss is over a blog post from Brogan where he talks about a Kmart shopping spree with a $500 gift card they sent him. Brogan also responds to the controversy with an excellent post on his social media blog.

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Copyright Search Engine Guide : Small Business Search Marketing – Puppy’s Picks – SES Coverage 12/15/08