We hope you had a beautiful end to the summer this Labor Day weekend! In upstate New York we’re already celebrating Autumn with hot apple cider and pumpkin donuts. It’s one of our favorite things, just like today’s guest poster, Ian Lurie, is one of our favorite SEOs. The founder of the Internet marketing company, Portent Interactive, Ian is equals parts brilliant and outspoken (no wonder we love him!). Today he combines both to give us the “6 Deadly Sins of Data Visualization.”

You’re a marketer. And half your job is marketing your ideas. Like it or not, you have to be good at proving your point, ‘cause being right isn’t enough. You have to justify the time, dollars and effort required for your internet marketing campaign. In the meeting room struggle for resources, your best weapon is great data presentation.

So why do so many of us suck at it?

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Joining us today on the blog is the amazing Brittan Bright. With a name like that, it’s impossible not to be a star! She is a dynamic SEO Account Director who has worked with enormous brands throughout her career. Those experiences combined with her passion for taking care of her clients and killer fashion sense, which she’ll explain below, are we think everyone needs to hear more from our favorite agency voice.

I will never forget when I figured out how to sell for the first time. I was an English major fresh out of my tiny liberal arts college, in a tiny town in rural Indiana. The only job I could find at that time was as a Sales Associate at the new Saks 5th Avenue store opening up in Indianapolis. So I translated my reading skills into people reading skills, moved to the city and accidentally started a career in sales, selling fancy stuff to be exact.

As I reflect back to the humble beginnings of my career, it’s striking to me how many of the skills that come naturally to me now were learned and honed in those early days. Being in the SEO industry, it’s safe to say I am still in the business of selling fancy stuff. My particular method for selling “fancy” or complex concepts and services, such as those offered in digital marketing, has always been and always will be to keep it simple.

Sometimes SEO can seem so complicated that we forget that it’s a professional business service. This means that there are simple truths that apply to how to service our clients, and I’d love to share my favorite four lessons with you today.

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Hi guys! We’re “under construction” with a new design and brand. Rather than letting the blog go quiet for a few more weeks with all hands on deck, we invited some of the industry’s best and brightest experts to guest post.

Without further ado, please welcome Zeph Snapp from Not Just SEO. He’s super talented, multilingual and has some very important international SEO advice to share.

Having an international website ought to be a priority for almost every organization. With the US economy stalling, and emerging markets living up to their title, targeting international website visitors can be an excellent way to grow your business in tough economic times. Many of you have probably seen your international traffic rise over the past year (go take a look, I can wait), and since international internet usage will quadruple by 2015, figuring out ways to make us foreigners feel good about your website is going to be an excellent investment.

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It’s been a few weeks since part 1 here of the blog inspiration series, but not for a lack of inspiration. We’re slammed and it’s a good problem to have, but I promised you awesome ideas, so let’s get back to it!

To recap ideas 1-3:

1. Find your muse
2. Control environmental factors
3. Clear your must-do’s

Now on to the rest!
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I don’t know if I have ever met an SEO who entered the field intentionally. One way or another, we Stumbled Upon (cheesy pun intended) this field and thought to ourselves, “Wow. This stuff is effing cool.”

In all seriousness, though, I wish someone had told me what to expect when I first discovered this fascinating career choice. Not knowing anything about it when I started, I approached everything in wide-eyed wonder, as though I had just fallen down the rabbit hole and entered another dimension. I had always taken the Internet and Google for granted. I entered a query, I got a response—done. What else did I need to know? As it turns out, I needed to know a lot.
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How do you allocate your time?

Lately, we’ve had to focus our energy inward. This makes me happy given the amount of growth Outspoken Media is experiencing, but at the same time, I apologize for the blog’s silence. It isn’t intentional, we still love all of you and we’ve got some great posts lined up for next week. There are simply times in a company’s life when we need to hunker down and get all hands on deck to take things to the next level.

In the meantime, take a moment to read Michelle Lowery’s post over at Raven on how an algorithm could replace writers. I think it’s her best piece, yet, and something everyone in the industry should be aware of. The blog inspiration series will be back next week with twice as many tips! I’ll also be seeing many of you in Seattle for MozCon where I’ll be presenting on online reputation management. It’s going to be a fantastic show.
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Have you seen the new tabbed sitelinks in search yet? The quips are already flowing inside the Outspoken Media office (“Now the Google six-pack comes with easy open tabs!”). Welcome to the newest face of search:

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Another network is helping to take the thought work out of search. Twitter recently announced the launch of two new features: Autocomplete and ‘People You Follow’ search results. In his post on the Twitter blog, Frost Li discusses the benefits to users, including spelling corrections, related search suggestions, real-name search for Twitter handles, and follower-only results.

Autocomplete is nothing new in the world of search. Since Google’s post-beta launch of ‘Google Suggest’/Autocomplete in 2008, enhanced features such as personalization and predictive search have become an expected part of the user experience. But in terms of online reputation management, suggested search on social networks can present several unique opportunities and challenges for businesses. Here are a few things you can do today to prepare, protect, and promote your brand through Twitter in light of the autocomplete update:
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Attempting to find blog inspiration can be incredibly productive. In the quest for a great blog topic or simply the creative zone we need to blog, we manage to find the time to pay our bills, clean up our inbox, dust off the exercise equipment, cook a four-course meal… we do everything except blog!

Why is that?

My most common reason excuse for not blogging is that I’m too busy. While I am busy, I’m not too busy to love and invest in the growth of this company, the team, our clients, and you, our community. The truth is I usually just don’t know what there is to say, have the ability to share it (client NDAs), or know how to say it. I know the value blogging brings to our business. But the self-defeating noise in my brain whenever I sit down to type a blog post can be paralyzing.

Maybe I’m alone in that, but I’m pretty sure my problem isn’t unique. I also believe bigger issues are at play.
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Real estate can be a complicated industry to market online. Having worked as the Marketing Coordinator for a real estate team (where I was also a Licensed Real Estate Salesperson and Realtor), I understand the idiosyncrasies of the field as well as the payoffs. What follows is an SEO guide for real estate agents and professionals, because I know how important it is to make informed marketing decisions and I want to help bridge the gap between agents and SEOs.
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