Business success stories: people love to hear stories about other people. How are you sharing yours?

From the days when people gathered at night around a campfire to today’s world of high-tech social media, people love to share stories – and to hear stories from other people. It’s just part of being human – and sharing these stories bring people closer together.

In the past 20-plus years as a writer, I’ve interviewed plenty of people. In that time, I’ve noticed one consistency – that people don’t really know the value of their own stories, and that includes business success stories.

Successful business stories: a case study

Several years ago, I interviewed a man with a successful photography business who volunteered to tape school programs for free. This article was to appear in a newspaper. Norbert was clearly a kind and talented man who loved giving back to his community and, after I asked him multiple questions, he thought he’d shared all the important features of his business with me.

At the end of the call, I told Norbert I thought I detected a faint accent in his voice but then it would disappear. Was I correct? The story he told me in response was amazing. Tragic . . . but also triumphant!

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Expert search engine optimization consultant Leslie Carruthers was chosen as one of 2012’s top women of SEO!

For the third year in a row, Level343.com has held a contest to determine the top women in SEO. Thirty women were nominated, with the general public voting for their choice – and our own Leslie Carruthers was chosen as one of the top ten women in SEO today.

Carruthers has notched ten years on her belt as a search engine optimization consultant and thirteen years in Internet marketing.

As the founder and president of The Search Guru, Carruthers has provided search solutions to mid-sized, large and enterprise-sized businesses that truly make a difference. See the home page for testimonials about how The Search Guru has helped companies achieve amazing results, as well as testimonials specifically about Leslie Carruthers’ expert search engine optimization knowledge.

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Wikipedia, Reddit, Flickr and more take a stand against SOPA / PIPA

Today, many websites such as Wikipedia, Reddit, Flickr and Google are limiting access to their content in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

At the heart of each act is legislation that shifts the burden of enforcing copyright law to individual website owners. SOPA, specifically, would allow the U.S Department of Justice and copyright holders to seek court orders against any website accused of copyright infringement.

Under SOPA, websites that support and facilitate user-generated / uploaded content would be responsible for all content displayed on their sites. This is especially problematic for large sites like Facebook, with hundreds of millions of users, worldwide.

The bill would also bar search engines from linking to sites accused of copyright infringement and would require Internet service providers to block access to those sites altogether.

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What is your New Year’s resolution list for 2012? How many of the top ten New Year’s resolutions appear on your list?

In an era where technology advances at lightning speed and pop culture icons come and go nearly as fast, it’s amazing how resolutions continue to focus on the same themes. The wish to improve in certain areas seems nearly universal.

To get a countdown of the top ten New Year’s resolutions for 2012, check out this cool presentation by Empowered Presentations.

Which of these appear on your New Year’s resolution list? What resolutions of yours don’t appear on the list – and might in fact be unique to you?

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Effective SEO strategies for 2012 encompass three key areas: mobile web optimization, local search engine optimization and marketing with social media.

2011 has been an interesting year in search, to say the least. One of the most important lessons of 2011, thanks to Google’s Panda algorithm, is that a site’s content must be both unique and worth reading. Sites can no longer get by with low-value content, such as pages with lists of links. Duplicate content is a big no-no, whether repeated on other pages of a site or elsewhere on the web. Now, these types of low-value pages can drag down the quality of an entire site, even if there is worthwhile content on other pages of the site.

Effective SEO strategies for 2012: Value counts big time, so either beef up or get rid of your site’s weak pages to stay in Google’s good graces.

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