One could argue that a negative aspect of the growth of corporations is that when you travel across the country you will likely see the same stores and restaurants. While this does provide a great service for people who prefer safe choices when dining or shopping in a foreign place, it means that there is less variety in the marketplace. We all know exactly what we will get when we visit an Applebees or Starbucks in a different town, but we may be adverse to taking a risk with a restaurant we have never heard of.

That is where online reviews can save the day. Online reviews provide transparency of information and you can instantly make an accurate estimation of an establishment’s quality because you can see how satisfied other people have been in the past. This can significantly mitigate the risk of trying an unknown restaurant and if there are enough reviews you can have a high level of certainty about what you should expect. This information makes people less reliant on brands like Applebees which they have come to like and trust, and puts power back in the hands of mom and pops. You can contribute to saving the mom and pop business by writing local reviews to share your experience whenever you can.

Here are some of the advanced search operators that I find most helpful when working on SEO.

site:www.yoursite.com

Shows number of pages indexed in Google.

keyword site:www.yoursite.com

Searches for a keyword on a specific site.

keyword * keyword

The star acts as wildcard for your query.

related:www.yoursite.com

Finds related or similar sites.

allintitle:keyword phrase

Searches for pages with the keywords in the title tags.

allinurl:keyword phrase

Searches for pages with the keywords in the URL.

“keyword phrase”

Searches for the exact use of the phrase.

Examples:
allintitle:guest post online marketing

Creative Commons Photo by Charles Sipe

Why Google Is Not Going Away All Things D

The Noob Guide to Linkbuilding SEOMoz

Creative Link Building for Ecommerce Sites SEOMoz

What Type of Links Should We Be Getting Point Blank SEO

Key takeaway: avoid exact match anchor text links from low quality sites.

Easy SEO Wins For Big Sites Search Engine Land

Key takeaway: Move the brand name to the end of the title tag.

Penguins, Pandas, and Panic at the Zoo SEOMoz

Key takeaway: Don’t be overly aggressive with exact match anchor text links.

Great talk by Susan Cain on the power of introverts.

Creative Commons Photo by Charles Sipe

5 Must Read Books on Content Marketing and Strategy Sparkplug Digital

Linklove Boston 2012 Recap Distilled

9 Tangible Linkable Asset Ideas and How to Build Links to Them SEOMoz

Non-Intuitive Search Queries & Resources for Link Building SEOMoz

This is a hilarious video made by Dollar Shave Club which has generated over 4 million views since it was uploaded on March 5th! Hat tip to Rand Fishkin who shared this in a presentation at a Hackers & Founders London event.

Takeaways
-”Videos are 53 times more likely than text pages to appear on the first page of search results” -Forrester
-Thousands of hours of video show shoppers tend to turn right after entering a store. -The Power of Habit

Cool Tools
MyBlogGuest – My go-to place to finding quality sites for publishing guest articles and articles to publish on my own site (there is a wide range in quality of the articles available).

Seattle Events
April 19th HuskyFest

What I’m Reading
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
In the Plex by Steven Levy
21: Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich

How Google Makes Liars out of the Good Guys in SEO – by Wil Reynolds on SEOMoz

Marketer’s Reading List – The Marketing Spot

What I Didn’t Learn About Marketing in College – Wright IMC

Inbound Marketing for Startups – video of Rand Fishkin’s talk at Hackers and Founders

3 Free Conference SEO Videos  – Distilled (normally $249)

Seahawks Uniforms – A new site that I just launched about the Seahawks new uniforms by Nike.

What I’m Reading
Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

A brilliant video showcasing the sights of New York City.

Here are a few of my favorite links from February 2012 (because we should reward great content by linking to it).

Link Building Strategies – The Complete List – An awesome list of linkbuilding ideas by Jon Cooper.

5 Ways to Build Links by Lending a Hand – Great post by Kane Jamison on earning links by being helpful.

Inbound.org – a brand new site that features articles on inbound marketing that can be voted up by the community.

Live Life in Permanent Beta (video) – A good talk at Stanford by Reid Hoffman on the idea that we are all entrepreneurs of our own careers.

Takeaways
-Reactivating past customers by offering them a special is a really effective marketing tactic. Netflix does this by emailing past customers a special offer every few months. -The Personal MBA
-Google processes about 1 billion searches a day. Bing processes about 60 million. -Optify

What I’m Reading
The Startup of You – by Reid Hoffman

Infographic by Seametrics, a manufacturer of water flow meter technology that measures and conserves water.

We often take water for granted but millions of people in the world have no access to clean water. An especially sad fact that I found was that a child dies from a water related disease every 20 seconds and 3.75 million people die each year. To put that into perspective, that is equivalent to filling Cowboy Stadium to capacity (80,000) over 44 times. Learn more about why water conservation matters in this infographic that I helped put together.

Infographic by Seametrics, a manufacturer of water flow meters that measure and conserve water.

I think podcasts are a great source of education and entertainment. One thing I love about podcasts is that there are great shows on almost any possible topic you could be interested in. Interested in science fiction books? Check out The Sword and Laser Podcast. Interested in marketing interviews? Try Brand Fast-Trackers. Here are just a few of the podcasts that I enjoy each week.

Marketing Over Coffee
John Wall and Chris Penn discuss marketing tactics, tips, and the latest developments in online marketing on this great weekly podcast.

Beancast
A weekly panel of marketers discuss the latest news in the advertising and marketing field in this entertaining and insightful show.

This Week in Tech
A weekly panel of tech experts provide entertaining commentary on the past week’s tech news.

The Naked Scientists
This is an awesome science podcast from the UK. One of the hosts, Chris Smith, has an uncanny ability to answer almost any science question from callers. I emailed in a question about why spicy foods make you sweat and they answered it on the show which was really exciting (the answer has to do with capsaicin).

Freakonomics Radio
Expanding on the theme of the book, Freakonomics Radio explores fascinating topics each week like “The Economist’s Guide to Parenting” which describes research that suggests that parents don’t matter very much.

Stuff You Should Know
A fun and informative podcast that focuses on a different interesting topic each week.

Career Tools
This podcast is a like having a great mentor provide you with hours of specific advice on how to be successful in the corporate environment.

Mixergy
Andrew Warner conducts in-depth interviews with successful entrepreneurs. I find these so valuable that I pay for the premium membership.

This Week in Startups
Valuable interviews with entrepreneurs and discussion about startup news.

48 Days Podcast
Dan Miller hosts this inspiring weekly podcast that discusses why you should pursue work that you love.

Photo courtesy of John P. from onemansblog.com

My team at Sparkplug Digital recently developed an infographic that provides actionable tips for conducting a self-check of your SEO strategy.

See full-size version.

Infographic by Sparkplug Digital

I read fewer books in 2011 than the previous year and finished with 14.

Books read in 2011:
-The Hunger Games
-Search Engine Optimization Secrets
-Start with Why
-Poke the Box
-Opportunity Screams
-The Happiness Advantage
-Onward
-4 Hour Work Week Expanded
-Enchantment
-Content Rules
-Fascinate
-The Art of Non-Conformity
-New Rules of Marketing and PR
-Marketing in the Age of Google

I didn’t quite reach my goal of reading 52 books in 2010. But I did read 23 very good books. I will try again in 2011.

Books read in 2010:
-The Art of Non-Conformity
-Branding Basics for Small Business
-The Accidental Billionaires
-Marketing Lessons from The Grateful Dead
-Word of Mouth Marketing
-Upside of Irrationality
-The Referral Engine
-The 24-Hour Customer
-Daemon
-Drive
-Delivering Happiness
-Open Leadership
-Six Pixels of Separation
-Rework
-Flip the Funnel
-What the Dog Saw
-Crush It
-The Blind Side
-Linchpin
-The Road
-The Next Evolution of Marketing
-The Lost Symbol
-Switch

My favorite book of the year was probably Accidental Billionaires.