First of all click play on the video here below, because after a year of Panda, Penguins, Venice, Top Heavies, EMD and whatsoever Google did, we are still alive and kicking. So, what better than enjoying the unofficial hymn of SEO industry (IMHO)?
And now the list of the best of 2012 in our industry. You will find posts, tools reviews, videos, decks from Slideshare and even one audio recording.
Obviously the list is totally not objective, and it is the expression of my tastes and what you will read and see here represents very well I think Web Marketing.
I’ve tried to organize the list in order to not make it seems also the exact picture of my sometimes “confused” mind.
I hope you will find it useful as it is for me.
Analytics
Pimping out Google Analytics for eCommerce websites by Cutroni and published on his personal blog.
Mobiel Marketing customer data acquisition behavior targeting by Avinash Kaushik and published on kuashik.net.
Content analytics. Measuring your Content Marketing results against your goals by Kristi Hines on SEOGadget.
Content Marketing
CocaCola Content 2020 – Part 1 and 2
“Content is not King”: Key takeaways from Amit Singhal by Adam Audette on Rimm Kaufman blog.
What The New Yorker Magazine Can Teach You About Content Marketing that Works by Demian Farnworth on Copyblogger.
Social Content: Creating the Right Content for Your Social Media Channels by Kristi Hines on SEOgadget.
A Smart 8-Point Content Marketing Strategy From a Failed Television Writer by Kelton Reid on Copyblogger.
The Ultimate Guide to Content Planning by Simon Penson on SEOmoz.
33 Things to Ask Before Hitting Publish on Blueglass.
Step by Step Content Marketing by Hiten Shah for the Blueglass LA Conference
Embed everything: 50 types of content that you can embed to enrich your content by Dafna Ben-Yehoshua on The Servula Blog.
The Rise of Visual Storytelling In Marketing by Magdalena Georgieva on Problogger.
Avoid Ordinary Infographics with These 7 Steps by Nock Santillo on Blueglass.
Think You Can’t Go Viral? Bull**** by Chris Warren on Distilled.
How to Create Smarter Content Using Semantic Keyword Research by Neil Patel on Copyblogger.
Rules for Guest Posting: Guidelines & Best Practices by Geoff Keynon on his personal blog.
Visual Storytelling 101 by Becca Colbaugh
Visual Storytelling 101 from JESS3
CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)
The Ultimate Guide to Landing Page Optimization by Oli Gardner on Unbounce.
What The Highest Converting Websites Do Differently by Zach Bulygo and Sean Work on KISSMetrics.
Understanding Mobile User Experience: the 3 Modes of Mobile Usage by Phil Webb on Mobify.
Colour: User Experience And Psychology by Jean Karl Izzo on Usability Geek.
From Content Audit to Design Insight : How a content audit facilitates decision-making and influences design strategy by Christopher Detzi on UX Magazine.
The New On-Page Optimization – Whiteboard Friday by Joanna Lord on SEOmoz
Industry Special
How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means for the Future of Everything by Alexis C. Madrigal on The Atlantic
How Google Organizes the World: Q&A With the Manager of Knowledge Graph by Jon Mitchell on Read Write
Link Building
The Blogger Outreach Tactics Your SEO Team Wants You to Learn on Blueglass
The Death of Link Building and the Rebirth of Link Earning – Whiteboard Friday by Rand Fishkin on SEOmoz
Link Building Tool Box – Productivity on Steroids by Himanshu Sharma on SEOTakeaways
Utilizing Second Tier Link Building For Massive ROI by Ross Hudgens on his personal site.
Reclaim Links, Traffic, Conversions You Lost Year Over Year by Adam Nelson on SEER Interactive.
Crush Link Prospecting With Free Tools by Ryan O’Connor on SEER Interactive.
How SEOgadget Builds Links by Richard Baxter for Searchlove London 2012
Link Building in 2012: Scalable Link Building by Kaiser the Sage on his personal site.
Link Building Strategies Spreadsheet by Rhea Drysdale on Outspoken Media.
Link Building Strategies – The Complete List by Jon Cooper on Point Blank SEO.
Best in Show: Tools for Building Links by Michelle Lowery on Outspoken Media.
Building Awesome Relationships For Links, Likes, and Love by Ed Fry on SEOmoz.
Influencer Marketing – What it is, and Why YOU Need to be Doing it by Eric Enge on SEOmoz
Algo Chasing – Think Devlish act Angelic by Wil Reynold for Searchlove London 2012
Local Search
Why Google’s Venice Update Fundamentally Changes Global SEO by Chris Liversidge on Search Engine Land.
How to Optimize Your Google+ Local Business Page by Doug Antkowiak on Portent.
The Worst Kept “Secret” in Local Search: My Thoughts on the Impending Plus-Places Merge by David Mihm on his personal site.
SEO
How to Increase the Odds of Your Content Going Viral – Whiteboard Friday by Rand Fishkin on SEOmoz
An Interview With A Google Search Quality Rater by Matt McGee on Search Engine Land
Timely Content in a World of Google Freshness by Jacob Klein on Distilled.
The Alfred Hitchcock Guide to SEO Copywriting by Jack Martin on Portent.
Create your SEO Dashboard in Google Docs with Google Analytics and SEOmoz MozScape Data by Aleyda Solis on her personal blog.
Craziest Audit Checklist on the Internet by Annie Cushing on SEER Interactive.
The Publisher’s Guide To Enterprise News SEO by Brian Provost on Search Engine Land.
An SEO’s guide to schema.org by Courtney Seiter on Raventools’ blog.
Getting Site Architecture Right by PeterD on SEObook.
GMail Rank and the Importance of Good Subject Lines by Bill Slawski on SEO By the Sea.
Multinational and multilingual sites: Google’s Pierre Far discusses by Bas van den Beld on State of Search.
The Blog Editor’s Cheat Sheet: What to Do Before, During and After Your Post Goes Live by Sherice Jacob on KISSMetrics
Keyword Analysis in a world of 100% ‘Not Provided’ by Rob Ousbey on Distilled.
Say what matters: My Mozcon 2012 presentation by Ian Lurie on Portent.
SEO for Images by Reid Bandremer on Lunametrics.
I Don’t Guest Blog by AJ Kohn on Blind Five Year Old.
Danny Sullivan’s Epic Rant on Links at SMX Advanced by Jeremy on WebSimple.
Readability and SEO by AJ Kohn on Blid Five Year Old.
The Anatomy of a Viral Product Launch by John Doherty on his personal blog.
The Ultimate Penguin Link Removal Guide by Adam Mason on Zazzle Media.
Authority Building vs. Link Building by Philip Petrescu for SMX ADvanced Seattle 2012.
Post Penguin Recovery: Link Removal Strategy for Back Link Profile Clean Ups by Matthew Taylor on SEOptimise.
How to Visualize Open Site Explorer Data in Gephi by Justin Briggs on his personal blog.
Using Majestic SEO without paying a penny by Dixon Jones on Majestic SEO’s blog.
Project Management for SEO (2012 Edition!) by Tom Critchlow on SEOmoz.
Identifying Link Patterns With SEO Tools by John Doherty on his personal blog.
PostRank and the Importance of Social Engagement Metrics to SEO by Bill Slawski on SEO By the Sea.
How to Stop Over Optimizing and Start Creating for SEO – Whiteboard Friday by Cyrus Shepard on SEOmoz.
On Page Factors Correlation Data on The Open Algorithm.
The Venice Shift from Local Pack to Blended Results by Mike Blumenthal on Blumentals.
Being Effective in Big Business SEO Auditing by James Carson on Distilled.
Learn Agile Marketing & SEO from Star Wars Stormtroopers by Jonathon Colman for Ad Tech 2012.
3 Things SEOs Can Learn From Ted by Kristy Ng on SEO.com.
SEO Should Be Invisible by Adam Audette on Rimm Kauffman.
Combining the HTML5 History API and the Canonical Tag for Improved Tracking by Tom Critchlow on Distilled.
Most Important SEO Patents Part 10: Just the Beginning by Bill Slawski on SEO By the Sea.
Predicting SEO Changes in Rankings, Algorithms, and Penalties by Bill Slawski on SEO By the Sea.
International Search Engine Optimization – Multilingual SEO by Fernando Maciá.
Dealing With The Increasing Complexity and Volume of SEO Tasks by Everett Sizemore on SeOverflow.
The Distilled Guide To Online Video Marketing by Distilled.
How Authorship (and Google+) Will Change Linkbuilding by Tom Anthony on SEOmoz.
Building Mobile-Optimized Websites by Google.
Establishing an Audit Framework by Annie Cushing for Search Love Boston 2012.
The New SEO Process (Quit Being Kanye) by Mike King on SEOmoz.
How to Perform the World’s Greatest SEO Audit by Steve Webb on SEOmoz.
SEOcial and Social Media
Complete Pinterest Guide | SEO and Traffic Generation With Pinterest on Online Income Star.
A Complete Guide To Create and Optimizing Google+ Brand Pages by Ruben Sanchez on Rimm Kaufman.
The Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest by Neil Patel on Quicksprout.
Tracking Social Efforts – Analytics Beyond the Link Shortener by Gabriella Sannino on Search Engine People.
Google Plus SEO by AJ Kohn on Blind Five Year Old.
Tools
Multilingual semantic map on steroids
How To: Build Open Site Explorer in Excel by Richard Baxter on SEOGadget.
Content Strategy Generator Tool – V2 Update by Daniel Butler on SEOGadget.
Awesome sites to find useful code snippets by Jean-Baptiste Jung on Cats Who Code.
Excel for SEO – Powerful Cheat Sheet to Boost Productivity by Himanshu Sharma on SEOTakeaways.
The Web Developer’s Interactive Cheatsheet for SEO and the Open Graph by Ginzametrics
Check Your XML Sitemap For Errors with this Excel Tip by Richard Baxter on SEOGadget.
How to Use BuzzStream with FollowerWonk by Matt Gratt on Buzzstream.
Web Marketing
The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book. Change or Perish by Avinash Kaushik on his personal site.
What Neuroscience Tells Us About Consumer Desire by Carmen Nobel on Working Knowledge (Harvard Business School).
Psychographic Targeting Unhinged! The Zen Of “Whole Customer” Persona Modeling by Marty Weintraub on Aimclear Blog.
WPO (Web Performance Optimization)
Web Performance Optimization, Web Page Load Speed Optimization by Gordon Choi in his personal site.
The posts I wrote and that I especially love
Beyond Storytelling. The Theory of Modes and the Web on State of Search.
The Cassandra Memorandum: Google in 2013 on SEOmoz.
Road to MozCon: The State of SEO in 2012 on SEOmoz.
Interviews in Search: Joanna Lord in this same site.
International SEO: Dropping the Information Dust on SEOmoz.
What is an SEO? in this same site.
The Red Carpet Economy on SEOmoz.
Pre-Launch and the Marketing of Suspense: The Hobbit History Case on State of Search.
That’s all, folks.
Ripper list, but where to start?! Thanks for compiling it! I guess one of the things about the web that I love is the giving like this. Much appreciated.
WOW .. just WOW
How low was this post sitting on the drawing board ?
Dude, thanks for highlighting my New Yorker content marketing post–that’s pretty substantial hat tip to make it to your best of 2012 list, man. You rock.
Wow Gianluca,
This has to be about the best list i’ve ever seen. It’s now bookmarked and will be visited daily until completed.
Thanks
George