Yup, it’s only Thursday evening and I’m tired of watching amateur cooks face off over hamburgers on the Food Channel  and with Friday being a full day down at our Innovation Factory for Mentor Committee intakes and meetings and then Cafe iF – I’m going to miss the chance to add a new post here to our blog. So….here’s our Fabulous Friday Infographic….and boy do we have a real winner to lead off with!

David Mihm, noted SEO practitioner from the Pacific NorthWest, is one of my own SEO personal role models. This man knows SEO. Period. And as he also runs the 30+ of us who help him with his Annual Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, he knows Google Maps/Places too. And then there’s the getListed.org online research group that he founded and runs – and did I mention the whole #localUniveristy group too? Okay, you get my drift…if there’s a guy to emulate, David would be dang close to the top of that list, eh!

Well, it appears that like most entrepreneurs who have a passion about what it is that gets them up and into the office before 7 am – David has added something totally new at least to me and it’s his infographic entitled “A Brief History of Google Places” that you can find here… - and what a read and study this is, eh!

 As David notes, we Canadian SEO types pay loads of attention to whatever comes out of Google on a daily basis – and those of us like my own practice, who work a majority of the time in the Local Search space we stay at the “bleeding edge” of the constant daily changes that Google puts out for their local Places/Maps algo! And I mean daily! Hourly even….and to stay ahead of the competition, we need to be studying and researching and testing and analyzing on a daily/hourly basis, eh!

Further as David notes in that posting – he and Mike Blumenthal and Matt McGee (surely the top three Local Search experts on the continent at least in my book!!!) contributed data and David has been hard at work compiling and working out the variations on the Google changes to the Local Search algo and as David points out, the interactive version of same MUST be a click you invest time in! DO IT! Go to that link and try the interactive link….and what you’ll find is one of the best tactical studies on the Google local algo that I’ve ever seen. Period.

David’s infographic covers from 2004 right up to 2011 and he has color-coded the details with respect to both the announcements of changes as the magnitude of same….and it’s so dang easy to follow the changes as they’ve occurred. For those of us who run an SEO practice in the Local Search space, we can (as I did with some glee and some regrets) match what’s noted with our client serps and find that “yup, got that one big time” and “oops…missed that totally” occurred throughout the 8 year reach of the study.

David, many many thanks from both myself, the whole SEO community – and yes, my clients too!

Muchly appreciated and I feel like I should be sending you some cash just to validate that you captured and publicized what I too found…used…and my clients gained some serp traction for same! #Kudos David…for an SEO job well done!

Okay, you know your stuff. You’re either a leading edge (or not so much) web developer or you’re an SMB who keeps his/her ear to the tech ground listening (or not so much either) for the latest in how to build a site that converts leads into buyers. You’re aware of the best practices of all of that – and yet your site just isn’t performing as good as it could be. Sound familiar?

Well aside from testing for “operational” items like cross-browser layouts or loading speed, as I pointed out – testing for conversions is very important. Sure elements of any conversion process strategy would include things like call-to-action buttons and colours of same;  promotion offers and how they’re worded, styled and sized; your forms and how they’re laid out and located on the website page….all are important and all attach themselves to your conversion rates as they should.

According to the folks over at Monetate, it appears that companies who do testing are 40% more satisfied with their conversion rates that the companies who don’t. Think about that for a minute….why would the firm that does testing, be more satisfied? Maybe because by doing so, they understand what the various contributing factors were that impacted their conversion rates.

Is that you?

Do you look at your analytics package numbers and see what kind of conversions your site receives. You know, visitor to your site enters your sales funnel….analytics shows them using your call-to-action form for inbound marketing….and then you see which of those visitors turns into a conversion via once again, your anlaytics – a repository you soon realize of not only search engine keyword tactics but of actual customer behaviour. Now that is really a bonus, eh!

And of course, there are other viewpoints too…like the folks over at Kissmetrics who published this testing Infographic back last summer but it remains on our own listing of “spot-on” items to peruse when we’re working on conversion testing strategy too. They remind us too, that you must always test for maximum success and at every single point of customer interaction too!

And lastly, here’s a short list of items that they list that are great tips to remember…

Too many unrelated links within eyesight of your call to action can distract visitors and lead them away from your sales funnel.

• Some fonts are easier on the eyes than others, and experimenting with various sizes and styles can have a noticeable impact on the success of your sales funnel.
• Always A/B test your landing pages and easily view their performance with the best conversion funnels in the business.
• Fewer form fields don’t necessarily mean more sign ups. Sometimes, as in the case of lead generation, it’s beneficial to add extra form fields to extract more information.
• Try displaying your ads on a wide variety of websites and test the responsiveness of each site’s audience to build an optimized display network.

Ahh….Friday again…and as usual it’s been a heck of a week in SEO land! Many many small issues arise throughout a week of working on SEO Campaigns for clients and this past one was no exception. As many of you know, I visit about 200+ sites each and every morning that are news related, opinion related, blog posts, forums, bulletin boards and even still newsgroups looking for the latest “bleeding edge” SEO tactics and this weeks visits once again pointed out a few real winners!

First up today, is the great Infographic entitled “A Market for Lemons” from the terrific SEO firm Lumin Consulting…and I’m chuffed about this company! Their site is simple to look at and navigate, doesn’t “hard sell” their services yet somehow IMHO, climbs the depths of the SEO well to be right near the top for me.

The Infographic that I’m pointing you at is all about the premise that “a seller will take advantage of a buyer’s lack of knowledge…” in SEO land…and aint that the truth! Go to this amazingly spot-on graphic and read and learn what most of us real SEO practitioners already know…that the best client is an educated one!

Well worth the click, eh for SMBs to learn about Canadian SEO! I like these guys. I do and #Kudos to them for their great Infographics!

Forrester is one of those huge, multinationals that spans the globe with their research, stats, market studies and while I’m sure you too have heard of same, if you’re honestly like me, the cost of acquiring their reports is sometimes just too dang expensive. That said, I do keep an eye on what their latest releases are, and the recent launch of their report entitled “Social Media Adoption in 2011″may just mean that I’m gonna have to find the cash to get the full report! That report illustrates how consumers are using social media by applying Forrester’s Social Technographics® global classification system.

That Infographic illustrates this framework where they classify consumers into seven groups based on online activities, and consumers can fall into several different groups…and yes, a lot has changed in the world of social media. Social networking has morphed into a global phenomenon. Today, 86% of online US adults and 79% of European online adults engage with social media. And consumers in emerging markets are also on social media — not just catching up. In fact, they lead the world in social media usage and engagement. So #Kudos too to the Forrester folks….now, where can I find some extra cash this weekend, eh?

And lastly for today’s roundup is a great combo of an SEO blog post by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz and the accompanying Infographic on a topic that should be near and dear to all SMB owners….as it’s on SEO firms and the pricing of an SEO Campaign, eh!

I couldn’t explain it any better than Rand himself on their blog page so here’s the raison d’etre -

“Near the end of December 2011, we ran a surveyon this blog asking consultants and agencies of all sizes and geographies to contribute their pricing models and cost structures. I’m pleased to share the results of that survey in the hopes that it will give everyone in the search industry a better idea of the range of fees and the services provided.

Obviously, this data is imperfect – SEOmoz is not a professional data surveying firm and our only tool was a basic list of questions on SurveyMonkey. That said, I’d be surprised if a professional surveyor found dramatically different data – there was enough participation to receive a trustworthy sample size and firms provided their personal/contact information (many of which I recognized while digging through the responses, but obviously will not be sharing identities publicly), which means we likely did not receive intentionally manipulative/misleading information. The data is provided below in three formats – first, some personal, high level takeaways from the survey, next an infographic from the great folks at AYTM Market Research…”

Your time will be well spent – just like your marketing budgets too, if you do click on those two links and go and read and learn about what this large survey shows concerning SEO practitioners in various countries and how our pricing models are similar and distinct too! So again, big big #Kudos to Rand and the folks over at SEOmoz for this….shows me right where “we” are in the larger scheme of all things SEO and lets me see how others do their own SEO Campaign pricings too! Cool…very cool Friday, eh?

So, to the finds for this week, and there’s no better one to start with than the folks over in merry old England at FreshEgg SEO! Never heard of these guys before, but after a tip to go and look at one of their infographics on branding, I found a host of others that are top-notch – well, let’s let them speak for themselves – here’s the link to the FreshEgg infographic blog area so you be the judge.

They combine “a market-leading, technical approach to SEO with a passion for high-quality, innovative web design and development” they say in their own words, and judging by the quality of the infographics, of their blog postings and yup, even by their client list – the folks at FreshEgg know their stuff! Do click over to their spot to see what I mean, eh! There is much more there than I can even cover here….so the learning is up to you but the click should well for your own education!

Our #2 choice this week is no less a great infographic – in fact the folks over at Reactorr, have done up a superb look/see/learn one here, entitled “Socializing your Brand” and it’s chock full of great items to ponder – especially if you’ve got a brand that might need some social media help, eh!

And the fact that this site and it’s founders are Canucks, makes me especially proud to point out their site as a great resource for all us SEO types, eh! Mark their blog with a bookmark and visit often as they update their thoughts on Canadian SEO - I did and if you run an SMB, so should you!

And lastly today, is the great infographic from KISSMetrics (a great name, eh!) entitled “Social Timing” and it’s a recap for those of us who Tweet and use Facebook, on what and when and why making those tweets excel can become…. As it’s shown that it comes from Dan Zarrella of HubSpot and is available as well in a Webinar format, that’s a link that should NOT be passed up either, eh! Hubspot works hard – damn hard – at it’s inbound marketing lead model and as we’ve been watching them closely, this infographic is just the tip of the whole Hubspot iceberg! Do click and learn! Worth the time, eh!

First up today, is the great one on SEO Audits in 20 Minutes, from the folks over at InMotion.com! As you can see by the image here, they’ve tried to capture what to do and how to do it in a method that tackles one of the most necessary yet under-utilized aspects of Internet marketing: the SEO audit.

This simple beginning factor is often overlooked by SMBs because they just don’t grasp that you must do this up front, before you mount any SEO Campaign else you may be making changes that are futile. Or worse, you may make changes that will affect your SEO rankings in a negative manner.

We often have clients, who come to us quoting SEO tactics that they’ve read worked, have tried and then they ended up on page 39….obviously the tactics don’t work, but they have no idea because they are fighting an uphill battle as they try to get their skill levels up to professional levels. Click here for the full-sized infographic too!

Okay, on to #2 this week…and it’s a real winner in our books from folks we’ve blogged about before, over at Voltier Digital. This one is a real capture of how to “go viral” and in their own words they say “This new infographic from our team takes a top level look at what “going viral” is all about.  There’s a science behind virility, and many factors that influence how far and wide a piece of content might be able to spread.   In this infographic, we walk through some of the factors influencing virility directly, and hopefully give some food for thought as you construct your next viral campaign!”

And how right they are too….give this one a read – note, it’s pretty long and comprehensive, but spot-on, eh! So #Kudos to these guys once again….what a great infographic, eh!

And then lastly for this week, is the one I found over on Aaron’s site, SEOBook.com….that is all about how organic links have lost their “weight” or their “heft” in SEO ranking factors…and I couldn’t agree more!

This one takes a bit to absorb…to dwell on…and then to hypothesize on how to combat the various Google factors and get back in the game, eh! I liked it muchly – and have already got one item from same in testing…and the outcomes already look positive! Look at the bottom for the notes on cross-linking…great stuff, Aaron! #Kudos and well done!

Okay, the weeks almost over and we’ve seen some great new items this week that need to be shared about online marketing and of course, on SEO too! While that might seem like a daunting task, i.e. the capture of a whole week’s worth of marketing data – I must explain that with over 170+ blogs, forums, boards and polling sites read daily, it’s harder to “cut” an item out of this short Friday list than to keep them all to share…but here goes! Got your learning cap on?

Greg Sterling, I’ve never met…but I can tell you, I read his blog and articles all over the web and his pointer this week that I’d like to share first, is on a recent survey from the folks at Merchant Circle and it’s a doozy! Greg comments on both Search Engine Land via a notice there as well as an in-depth look at same on his own blog at screenwerk.com here….and the numbers are pretty significant! What Merchant Circle published is a survey and infographic of over 2500 firms involved in assessing SMBs’ perceptions of the economy and their top business challenges, the survey is a great barometer of SMB marketing attitudes and tactics.

The survey was conducted last month and received roughly 2,500 responses from SMBs drawn from Merchant Circle’s 1.6 million member database. Almost 80% (78%) were from companies with fewer than four employees. Only 1.7% of responses came from merchants with more than 50 employees. The headcount distribution of businesses in the sample is directionally consistent with US Census data.

Just under half of the respondents (48%) saw the business climate as weaker, while 52% said it was improved to varying degrees. Only 21% of these businesses said they were going to decrease marketing spending. Most were going to hold the line (57%) or increase spending (29%). The majority (63%) of these SMBs said they spent $2,500 or less on marketing annually….and you should definitely look at the charts on both the SEL blog and Greg’s too….as well as over at Merchantcircle.com! So Kudos to Greg….and you should add his blog to your daily reading list too, eh!

Did you know that Canadians – yes, us Canucks – are the world’s top video surfers? It seems that this postshows that  Canada’s love affair with online video and smartphones is fuelling big growth in mobile marketing that rivals the U.S. scene, the latest research shows. Canadians consume more video on the Web than any other nationality on the planet, according to the latest figures from comScore Inc. The average Canadian spends 16.8 hours per month viewing 221 videos on the Net, topping the U.S. average of 13 hours a month spent viewing 200 videos.  And 40 per cent of Canadians now own a smartphone, ranking us fourth in the world after Spain, the U.K. and Italy and ahead of fifth-place U.S., where penetration is 38 per cent, according to comScore. Both trends are feeding off of one another to drive a surge in mobile marketing in Canada, including short form video ads and teasers designed specifically for smartphones, says Jason Cowell, the creative director at Toronto marketing agency BStreet. Cool Canuck SEO!

Lastly for today, is an infographic titled “Who’s Using Google+?” –  that I feel really captures the usage of the fairly new Google+ social media app…and it’s from the folks over at Flowtown, a site that I’ve pointed you to before here and here and here! This infographic (by Dan Martell) speaks directly to the users, their numbers and what I found most interesting was that after studying same, I was surprised to see that 83% of the Google+ members are inactive…..they don’t post nor it appears even drop in to look around anymore. Open only since the launch back in June, Google+ as Flowtown points out, is no Facebook killer — and the stats on this infographic show just that to be true!

And I had fun. No two ways about it….I met lots of start-ups that I’ve coached or mentored or who’ve taken our own “Go-To-Market” seminars and chatted with them all!

Over a glass or two of red wine of course…but nevertheless this Soiree with more than 400 or so folks was surely (so far at least) THE holiday party of the year! Twinkly little lights and servers with trays of scrumptious hors d’oeuvres is the way to this online marketers heart…and I was definitely a happy Canuck SEO practitioner last night for sure!

That said just one big tip for you online marketers….on conversion, which can be defined as the process whereby a sales lead moves “into” your sales funnel and moves down lower to become a new customer/client via that conversion processs. Not really a very tough concept to grab ahold of….but when you ask clients or potential clients who their own Chief Conversion Officer is – you just get a blank stare.

Yup, as this great infographic from Column Five Media shows, each and every single company has to have, wants to have and yes, needs to have someone who takes on that same exact role!

So if your own company uses a “spray & pray” type of strategy, this latest research in a very easy to grasp-hold-of infographic is for you! Oh, do look at others there too….there’s hundreds by many of the contintent’s best infographic firms….and I’m working  my way thru one at a time!

Yup, it’s Friday again and our work has all been caught up…we’re finallly in the home stretch for a couple of site developments/rebuilds and our SEO linking lures worked pretty good this week (dont’cha love .edu links!!!) and so the weekend appears to be time off mostly.

Well…mostly…but I did think that I’d run a quick search on infographics and SEO and stats and metrics and here’s some of the ones I’ve drilled down on in the past few days.

First, from MindFlash.com, comes a cool infographic from Colin Dobrin (with help from Lewis Howes the LinkedIn guru) and basically what it reminds us of is that  LinkedIn is the proverbial dark horse of social media and this one is about basic training on that social media giant.

And judging by some of the other infographics available on that site, I’ll be back regularly to check them out – you should bookmark that site too, eh….as Canadian SEO relys we all know on infographics! So big #Kudos to Colin!

Judging by the way I immediately was taught about social media by vising jeffbullas.com, I know that this guy knows something – lots more than most – and how to pass along that information using infographics.

Jeff has captured 5 of the best on Twitter that I’ve seen….especially the one about Professors & Facebook one! This too is worth the clickthru….and I’ve once again added this site to my daily reading list….

And dont forget to scroll down to view the one on Seniors and Facebook….there’s a growing number of boomers and boomers-to-soon-be that are “catching on” to Facebook and that’s a growing new marketing channel too, eh! And again big #Kudos to Jeff…I’m a new regular on that site!

And lastly today, as we’ve looked at both Linkedin and Facebook, I thought it fair to add a set of Twitter infographics that just came to my attention too….from the wondeful folks over at HubSpot…

The 10 infographics on this page all feature items to consider when using Twitter to market your social media SEO skillset….and from usage stats to marketing tips, these have gotta be viewed and the learning you get from same are yup, topnotch! Big #kudos to HubSpot for the capture of these….and if you’re like me, when you see one that is most relevant to your own clients, you’ll then also drill down on the firm that produced same to get more info!

Okie-dokie…we’re jammed and still trying to take on more as opportunity seems to want to knock almost daily! I know…you too….isn’t being an entrepreneur about the best “job” in the world! Yup, agreement here on that too!

Okay, so Friday….4 meetings today and then some more SEO keyword research long into the night and we’re tracking Google in the UK at those data centres heavily still and yup, the brits are different, eh! Not a problem, but the mere thought of how such a thing as a keyword can differentiate itself in a UK world compared to a Canuck one is still awe inspiring! Good on you Google!

That said, we did bump into a few new infographics that we thought we’d once again share….and here’s what we’ve seen come to light in the recent past…

From the folks over at Intuit, comes a great Small Business Infographic entitled “The Small Business Web” and it captures just what one needs to know…and here’s what they had to say about it –

“Finding a well-regarded local restaurant, hair stylist, dry cleaner — you name it — takes little more than a simple web search and a quick scroll through reviews and ratings. With 97 percent of U.S. online consumers relying on the internet to shop locally and with customers offering their peers unsolicited business reviews all the time, it’s more important than ever for small businesses to engage with customers on social media and to create a website to shape and grow their online presences. In this infographic, we look at how small businesses are working with the web…”

And a quick look at the whole Small Business blog area shows that Intuit is yes, into the SMB world and that a trip to their blog once in awhile would be a true learning experience!

Okay on to our last great Infographic and this one is very well done too. If you run Adwords or PPC Campaigns, then you must already have some knowledge of how things “work” within the Google Adwords kingdom. What the auctions are, where you can excel, what kind of terms you use and how to succeed in same. Us? No, we do not run any PPC campaigns for any clients anymore. To be totally truthful, we were out of that arena almost 5 years ago and we do not foresee ever getting back into same….it’s just not for us. Yes, it’s instant traffic and yes if you convert and your numbers are respectful then the ROI can be acceptable too…it’ s just that organic SEO is so so much more within our skillset that to venture into the PPC arena would be  dreadful IMHO!

So, the Infographic is entitled “How Does Google Adwords Work” and you’ll find it here….and it’s a real doozy. While many of the points of view are beyond our own knowledge set, I did run it by the firm that we send all of our potential PPC campaign clients and they loved it!

Incidentially, the lads who run the InfographicsArchive, a digital library offering up tons of infographics, feature some of the best ones I’ve ever seen, eh!

Well worth bookmarking their site and dropping by for further look/sees at some of the best infographics on the web and we do it weekly too as infographic research is an integral part of our Canadian SEO world, eh!

So a big #Kudos to InfographicsArchive.com!

That said, I thought that I’d recapture a couple of great infographics that appeared in the last couple of days that I think are pretty sppt-on when it comes to SEO and they are not only great looking but as usual, they impart knowledge that is easy to fall into….and learn quickly about the whole premise.

First up, is a great infographic from the keyword research mavens over at Wordstream…..on how Google makes it’s Adsense revenues and on which top keywords the big money comes from — and I love this one!

Wordstream has captured the top 20 keywords that bring Google more than $30 billion bucks….and displays same in a piechart that lists each and everyone of same….and the thing is, it’s not that surprising at least to me for some of the terms.

Insurance. Everyone uses and has to have insurance, so it’s no surprise that this is the #1 keyword in AdSense and it brings – are you ready for this number – $54+ dollars a click for over 24% of the whole revenue stream. What is surprising for me tho, is that there are no healthcare terms…doctor or carpal tunnel syndrome or orthodontist…yet there are some that do seem odd tho — like donations, rehab and even “cord blood” ???

Cord blood? It took me a wikipedia look and read to even understand what that term means….and then all I could do was to shake my head….folks pay $$$ for that kind of link? Beyond me…but hey, so is much of online quirkyness, eh!

Internet speeds and costs are important to any business, and this blog piece by Byron Holland over at CIRA, offers up an unsettling conclusion on just how “bad” we Canucks now fare when it comes to both.

In 2001, Canada was a leader in broadband technology, being right up at the top of the with regards to speed and costs. Not so anymore, only a decade later, Canada has fallen to now be 23rd in the world! Our average connection speed is now 21 MBPS at an averge cost of $4.15 for each MB….with the new leader being Japan at 81 MBPS at a cost of only $0.40 cents….hows that for a competitive advantage that can’t be explained. We have fallen behind, when we used to lead….and I understand from Byron, that the CRTC is going to be releasing our latest Digital Economy Strategy position as it opens up new public discourse on same next week. We need to get back up to the top of that list, eh! And I can’t be alone in that thinking either….and this infographic shows thew world’s top countries and their various speed/costs….& we are way way back in the pack….sigh.

David Crow is a very well know, reputable startup type guy who champions local startups and I read his own blog here as well as StartUpNorth too every day, and his mention today of a new infographic on B2B marketing done by the folks over at KissMetrics was a great lead to follow!

A quick look, then a detailed study shows me that online marketers are moving more towards online budgets; that 8 out of the top 10 best performing marketing channels are digital ones; that trade shows remain important with 85% of marketers investing in event marketing and that’s a growing number too. If you’re in the B2B space, I’d surely get over to Kissmetrics and take a good look at same…lotsa interesting stats there that can help you drive your own upcoming marketing plan for Canadian SEO plans for the next year, eh!