Gloria Rand’s Top 10 Blog Posts of 2012

top 10 2012With 2013 on the horizon, I think it’s a good time to take a look back at 2012. It was certainly a tumultuous year for… Facebook! (Yes, it was an election year here in the U.S. but there are plenty of other blogs that can comment on that front.) The social networking site made headlines all year long: switching business pages to Timeline, launching an initial public offering (and seeing its share price tank), and then struggling to monetize its business by introducing new advertising initiatives. Of course, Facebook wasn’t the only big story of 2012. Pinterest introduced business pages to tap into its growing popularity as a social network. Google+ struggled to stay relevant by introducing communities (I’m still not convinced!), while Twitter and LinkedIn both updated the look of their profile pages.

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SEO Value of Blog Comments

SEO value and blog comments by Gloria Rand

Ever get stuck for blog article ideas? Client questions are a great resource. In fact, that’s exactly what sparked the topic for today’s article!

One of my clients recently asked me, “Can comments on web-based articles help with rankings in Google as far as SEO is concerned?” The reason for his question is because he had just received this comment from his webhost: “Content” does influence SEO but it’s only the content inside an article or post. Google, Bing, and Yahoo do not look at the comments to determine any type of SEO ranking.”

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My Top 5 Free Keyword Research Tools

SEO By Gloria Rand

Getting your website, blog or social media posts found online depends on implementing a successful search engine optimization strategy. And the first step in launching any SEO program starts with keyword research.

Once you come up with a list of words that you think people are using to search for your product or service, don’t just start writing copy with those words. What you think are effective words and what other people are actually using to search may be quite different. So it pays to double check your words with some online keyword tools. You may find some alternative keywords and long-tail search phrases that will be more effective in reaching your target audience online.

Here are a few of my favorite resources for keyword research:

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