We all know how the Like button works on Facebook and similarly the +1 for content such as articles. But have you thought about using the Favorite button on Twitter to measure quality and effectiveness of your content marketing? Use it also to build your audience, your social media relationships, and to extend the reach of your valuable content with better social content marketing.

Google is constantly testing new features for search. This month we are seeing some interesting developments in the ranking pages. Many of the large search websites provide information about these tests as they are spotted in the search engine ranking pages. It is important to watch what Google is changing, because the implementation of some changes may impact your search traffic.

Firstly, it's not a brave new world per se. The world of SEO has always been like this, but many have missed what is required.

There you are, optimizing your site for the top keyword terms in your niche. Good work. Now along comes Google to state that over 20% of all searches are terms that have never been searched upon before.

The importance of interesting, high quality content and effective marketing has become of paramount importance now to get good rankings on the search engines. However, traffic to your website is no good unless the visitor becomes a conversion – enquiring about your products and services, joining your mailing list, or better still, making a purchase.

Humans and Hashtags, Keywords and Content
It is ironical that while Google and others talk about being user-friendly, in some ways, it is becoming harder to actually find what you are looking for on search engines. The use of long tail terms (3 or more search terms) has become imperative now as online users are increasingly looking to the social networks to find their answers from friends and followers.