Interesting Reading This Week

If you follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ then you've likely already seen us linking to the following posts. But if not, here's a quick review of some of the interesting posts we've been reading this week:

HubSpot had a very helpful article this week that explained some SEO techniques that are sure to dominate popular methods of content discovery. The article goes into detail about the three types of searches the audience or consumers will perform to get what they are looking for, and it provides great methods of developing your own strategies that will allow for the optimisation of content for each of these search types. Check this article out if you want some insight into getting your content high up on the SERPs.

This article from Elcom highlights the importance of corporate innovation, valuing employees, company intranet and knowledge management/sharing to foster healthy enterprise. There is discussion about the positive effects of giving employees the tools they need to share knowledge they posses as individuals and have access to further training and information about the company. This article is all about making the staff body of your organisation more innovative and knowledgable, so give this one a read if you're looking for ways to increase employee interest. Adding some of the helpful aspects explained in the article into the intranet will ensure an excellent working culture, improved customer service and employees as useful company assets.

Econsultancy published an interesting discussion where a panel of experts gave their opinions on the effects of PPC on SEO. The article covers a range of insightful viewpoints, most indicating that the benefits outweighed any negative points. Some benefits that were highlighted include brand awareness and exposure, as well as keyword data that can be obtained from PPC and then used in SEO campaigns. On the other hand, some of the negatives in the discussion include additional expenses on AdWords that could (for example) otherwise have been driven organically. The article also outlines the recent removal of author images by Google. For some expert guidance in these issues, have a read.

Simply Measured's post from earlier this week is about using Instagram as a tool to publicise products and involve users/consumers at the same time. The article covers 6 reasons your competitors might be on Instagram and presents a very positive case for why you should be on it too. Just one reason to start using Instagram for your product is the application's high engagement levels; interestingly, Instagram's engagement with users is much larger than any statistics for Facebook and Twitter. Instagram seems to have the ability to heavily engage audiences who are more willing to 'like' and comment than on other networks. Have a read (and then go sign up on Instagram).

Digivate's recent article explains Google's new manual penalty against thin content. This is an important read to understand how to keep your sites from being manually targeted by Google for having "thing content with little or no added value". Give this article a read and make sure your sites meet Google's Webmaster guidelines. The article also explains that this penalty used to be handled automatically, but this new penalty appears to be manual action. Discussed in the article is whether or not this means Google has eased up on the penalty, or whether this manual attention means Google is cracking down on severe cases of thin content.