Has you site recently dropped like a rock, right off the front page of Google? If so, a big, scary, rank-wrecking bird from Antarctica may be to blame.

Yes, I’m talking about Google’s latest site-slapping update, codename: Penguin. So what did you do wrong?

Ironically, many of the things you’ve done to boost your page rank on Google may have just caused your site to lose authority. The penguin is a funny bird…

It was no secret that Google wasn’t happy about a broad range of the keyword and link-building schemes going on. In fact, Google has been slapping digital marketers for a broad range of offenses since the early days. Trust me… I know all about it.

This time, however, Google gave us fair warning. Matt Cutts pretty much declared war on “over-optimization” at SXSW…

And what they’re doing is actually driven by the desire to improve the quality of search results. So it’s actually a good thing for Google users overall.

HEY, I’m trying to look at the bright side…

What Penguin HATES: “Over-optimization”

As you can imagine, Google doesn’t like it when webmasters try to trick it’s search engine with “black hat” SEO schemes. Supposedly, the folks at Google are trying to reward “white hat” SEO efforts, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

First, we should take a quick look at what Google is slapping sites for, so hopefully some of us can get out of the path of destruction:

1. Keyword loading, aka “webspam”
2. Misleading or irrelevant outbound links
3. hidden or cloaked text and/or links

Google calls this “over-optimization,” but what they really mean is “exploiting sneaky SEO loophole tactics.” For many of us who may have dabbled in this gray area in the past, Google is planning to make us pay.

On the flipside, Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted that Google is responding to complaints from sites that believe they’ve been unfairly affected.

We’ll see how that goes…

Takeaway

If you’re concerned about your site — and if you’ve hired anyone to do any “SEO work” on your site in the past, you probably should be — here’s a great article about how to check your site for over-optimization.

Guidelines for the future are simple: Engage in white hat optimization only. That means you should write helpful, meaningful content that’s relevant to the topic of your site… with helpful, relevant links.

Mainly, Penguin’s about what you should NOT do.

To all of you SEO masters on Fiverr, whose tactics have been ravaged by Penguin: Hang in there…

As the technology sector continues to pump out impressive growth quarter after quarter, there’s a ton of persistent chatter about the dark side…

It’s mostly about an epic, big budget sequel called The Return of the Tech Bubble. With so many IPOs launching in the past year, most of them tech companies, it’s pretty easy to see why some are worried.

If you’re an investor, it’s your job to worry about overvalued stocks. I mean, this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen tech stocks go mountain climbing based on massive, unbridled optimism, only to go splat.

But this time it’s different…

You may recognize these as the famous last words that have sent many investors and business owners to the poor house, but that doesn’t mean they’re not true.

The tech industry is light years more mature than it was in 1999, folks. One of the biggest reasons for that is the crash of 2000…

Investors are much less willing to drink the koolaid than they were during “Tech Bubble Part 1.” Case in point, Groupon’s underwhelming stock performance. Since it’s IPO, Groupon has been getting hammered for being immature and overly optimistic. CEO Andrew Mason recently said his company needs to “grow up,” he even personally apologized for drinking too much beer.

Another reason things are different in 2012 is that the tech giants now have proven business models, with massive earnings. Consider the very healthy, not very bubble-like, P/E ratios of a few of the major players.

In a recent blog post, Chris Dixon highlighted the surprisingly not sky high numbers: “Apple (14 P/E), Google (18 P/E), eBay (16 P/E), Yahoo (17 P/E).”

Why It Looks Bubbly

I’m not saying that there isn’t a little bubble psychology at work out there, especially with the IPOs. People get carried away with the excitement of an IPO like Facebook’s and think they’re going to flip the stock for major profits in only a few months. That’s just speculation…

I hate to break it to you, but there will always be speculators going bust in any economy.

The other reason some people are seeing champagne in tech stocks are the recent big splash acquisitions of Instagram and Draw Something. You can argue whether or not Zynga made a mistake by purchasing Draw Something, but it definitely didn’t cause Zynga’s stock to skyrocket on the NASDAQ — even though the purchase doubled Zynga’s active users.

Likewise, Facebook’s $1B purchase of Instagram was widely viewed with suspicion, not glee. For the markets, that’s healthy.

Actually I think both of these controversial acquisitions were probably very smart moves — and moves that even smaller entrepreneurs can duplicate. To learn more about WHY, you’ll have to check out the Limitless Growth column in May’s DM Pro Newsletter.

In business, it’s all about the bottom line. In politics, it’s the economy, stupid. Right?

Sure, I’m oversimplifying a few things here… but that doesn’t mean the statements aren’t true.

What’s more, the bottom line and the stupid economy the top two reasons that 2012 is the year of inbound marketing.

Let me explain.

A new infographic from G+ confirms what we all suspected. The average cost of acquiring a lead through inbound marketing is 61% cheaper than getting one through outbound marketing. That means that businesses that are not engaged in inbound marketing are missing out on their cheapest lead source.

Not only are they paying too much for their leads, they’re leaving money on the table…

Because research has also shown that nearly ALL inbound leads have a higher chance of CONVERTING — i.e. becoming a customer (spending MONEY).

So, whether your looking to save money in this slow-growth economy, or boost the bottom line, inbound marketing is the answer.

I could break down all of the other reasons that inbound marketing is outpacing outbound, BUT I really don’t need to. You see, for most companies small and large, it’s all about the bottom line… or the economy. That’s far more persuasive than metrics about “reach” or “engagement.”

For years, we’ve known that inbound marketing channels like blogs and social media must sorta kinda work somehow… I mean, it only makes sense that “Likes” on Facebook MUST translate into sales at some point.

While most devout social media practitioners have insisted that engagement was CRUCIAL in a “macro” sense, they also ridiculed the attempt to measure the ROI of social media.

Here’s the thing, when something gets valuable enough, people with really big brains start to pay attention to it. Enter Google Analytics and the Social Data Hub.

It may be difficult to measure the ROI of inbound marketing… but it’s far from impossible. That’s why — and this is the biggest endorsement for inbound marketing I’ve heard yet — a whopping 47% of companies plan to expand their inbound marketing budget in 2012.

The second biggest endorsement is Google’s new Social Data Hub. The people on Google’s research campus are interested in social media marketing BECAUSE they know it’s worth a TON of money — not just for marketers and GooglePlus, but also for the entire social media economy.

Google doesn’t jack around with small potatoes; Google+ and the Social Data Hub are proof that it expects inbound to continue growing for the next several years.

When it comes to digital marketing, there are trends that whisper…. and trends that SCREAM.

Capitalizing on trends that whisper is what makes you seem cool and ultra-informed. But it’s the trends that scream that you really can’t afford to miss out on.

Right now, one of the loudest trend I’m anticipating in 2012 is video taking a bigger slice of the online marketplace. It’s not like this is some kind of bombshell prediction. It’s been building for years….

Right now, almost all of the biggest players are pushing to video and pushing HARD. Netflix, YouTube (owned by Google), GoogleTV, iTV (Apple), Amazon Prime, and countless others are all dumping big money into prime video.

Not to mention, the tablet devices that are reshaping our browsing experiences are all designed to stream video.

Here are a few quick facts just to show you how strong this trend really is.

Just yesterday, it was announced that there a full hour of video is uploaded on YouTube every second — 60 hours every minute of every day.

Cisco is re-engineering its routers to deal with what they call the “video onslaught,” i.e. they’re projecting that 90% of all internet traffic will be video by 2015.

Past 5:00 at night, more than half of all internet traffic is already video traffic — Netflix and other companies serving prime video.

What does this mean for marketers? Obviously, it means you need to start embracing video — YESTERDAY.

For over a year, I’ve been recommending that you test video sales letters, no matter what industry you’re in. We offer a ton of great trainings at Digital Marketer.

Recently, my team stumbled onto the power of the YouTube thumbprint. Here’s a hint: If your Google search result has a YouTube thumbnail, it ranks higher and it gets a LOT more clicks.

So there you have it… this trend is practically screaming its head off. All you have to do is listen.

When most people watch a football game on TV, what are they looking at? The ball, right?

It’s like that old saying, “Keep your eye on the ball.”

The next time you watch a football game (and considering the staggering ratings numbers the NFL is putting up these days, most of you do), I want you to try something new — spend at least an entire quarter watching anything BUT the ball.

You’ll be surprised at how much more you’ll actually learn about the teams… about the match-ups, the coaching, and the play calling.

At Digital Marketer, we have a saying (ironically, one that we stole from a superstar of an entirely different sport); “Go where the puck is going to be.”

Sometimes the ball (or puck) is just a distraction. It represents the past… What really matters is everything else.

Not that the current play is irrelevant. BUT isn’t the current play really designed to set up the next?

I mean you wouldn’t be much of a football coach if you couldn’t think a couple of downs ahead of the current play.

I’ve said all of that to say this: Most people are watching the ball. You want to be watching THE GAME.

For example, while most people are wondering how successfully Google+ can compete with Facebook — HubSpot understands that’s not what Google+ is about. Instead, Google+ is really about generating social media ratings and recommendations to enhance Google’s search capabilities.

Ebay, Microsoft, Best Buy, Yahoo… these guys are losing their spot on the starting roster. They may make a big play on special teams now and then, but their missing out on the bigger picture.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google are the 4 bigs, and they created even more separation from the rest of the pack at the end of 2011.

For example, as of right now Apple’s iOS owns 52% of the mobile web market share. That’s more than just a competitive edge.

To take our sports metaphor a step further, we should all be watching film on these guys. These guys are where 2012 is going. Why?

Because the “Big 4″ were the first to realize a truly “big picture” strategy. You won’t find these guys on the field. Or on the sidelines with a clipboard in hand. They’re in the skybox. They own the teams AND the stadiums.

In other words, they own the platforms — iOS, Android, Facebook, Amazon.com, etc. As an entrepreneur, or a marketer, you can either compete against these owners — or you can bet on their teams.

Clearly, the easiest way to profit in this type of game is to place educated bets. That means it’s time to get well-educated. Right?

With Amazon’s killer holiday sales and its Kindle Fire competing fiercely the tablet war, Amazon is a fine place to start studying up. We’ve got an excellent $7 report at Digital Marketer, “Partnering With Amazon,” that help you do just that.

For years, programmers have griped about having to cater to Microsoft’s browser near-opoly. Internet Explorer, designers complained, didn’t play by the rules and wasted tons of their time.

Most of these web designers will be happy to know that IE’s kung fu grip on the browser market is finally and quickly breaking down. Last week, StatCounter broke the news that Google Chrome is now the world’s second most-popular browser, narrowly edging out Mozilla’s popular Firefox for the number two spot.

Even more important, Internet Explorer’s users are abandoning the browser in droves. As it stands, IE is clinging onto 40% of the global market, down from 56.6% just two years ago and 95% in 2004.

What can we learn from this?

• Microsoft is missing the boat. It doesn’t take a genius to see that smartphones and tablets are taking over. Google and Apple are heavily invested in the mobile marketplace and therefore their browsers are getting a bump.
• IE is a default, not a choice. It’d be interesting to find out how many Mac users have actually downloaded IE to their machines – far fewer than have installed Chrome or Firefox, I’d be willing to bet. As user sophistication increases, the power of manufacturer biases decreases – an important lesson for all (Google and Apple included).
• Google is doing a much better job keeping users inside its universe.  Like Microsoft did with IE, Google is cranking out proprietary features that run best on Chrome. For example, Gmail offline only works on Chrome.  If and when Google releases a version of Chrome for the Android, Google house brand compatibility issues will probably become more common.

Five years ago, it was hard to imagine a world in which Microsoft was not a dominating presence, but here we are.

As Apple, Amazon, and Google continue to expand into mobile territory and online retail, their ecosystems will only become more attractive to marketers. And each of these mega-brands appear to be taking a page out of Microsoft’s playbook, leveraging their own products to shut out the competition.

If you haven’t set up a brand page on Google+ yet – now’s the time. And I don’t say this because having a Google+ profile will send tons of traffic to your site, YET.

I say this because it’s quick, it’s easy, and if you don’t do it…

…someone else may get there first and set up a fake profile where yours should be.

For some reason – perhaps to simulate a more organic social media startup – Google has adopted a pretty loose policy when it comes to verification. The thing is, Google+ is not exactly a startup – at all.

Mashable’s Todd Wasserman was apparently able to create a fake Coca-Cola page in minutes. To Google’s credit, it’s since been taken down.

Google+ has a few other shortcomings as well. For example, it’s hard for users to find brands (you have to search “Brand-X google plus,” not “Brand-X”).

Also, Google+ only allows one administrator to access to the brand’s page. ONE.

I’ve been pretty enthusiastic about Google+ and its marketing potential for a while. And based on Google’s reputation, I believe they’ll eventually get it right.

There may be a few hiccups, but Google+ will eventually become an important part of your social media strategy. It’s that simple.

Create a brand page, start experimenting, and you’ll be ahead of the curve. Resistance is futile… this is Google after all.

Check out what others are saying about Google+ brand pages:

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/28624/How-to-Create-a-Google-Business-Page-in-5-Simple-Steps.aspx

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-pages-gets-mixed-reviews-136444

http://scobleizer.com/2011/11/08/i-wish-i-had-never-heard-of-googles-brand-pages/

Have you had any awesomely positive or negative experiences with a Google+ brand page thus far?

**Note From Ryan: I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about Google + and its role in digital marketing…

“Is it a Facebook Killer?”, “Is it a Twitter Killer?”, “Is it going to be useful for business?” (to the second question, I happen to agree with Shoemoney, and I think Google + is a big reason why…)

For most of these questions, it’s still too soon to tell.  BUT… I asked my social media manager Shane Stearns to write a quick post about how we’re using it and here is what he had to say: P.S. My comments are at the bottom of the article…

You’ve no doubt heard at least a few things about Google Plus, Google’s new Social Network.  If you’re one of the lucky 20 million, you have already have your account setup and you’re beginning to explore Google Plus wondering if it’s something that will become part of your daily life.

I’m not going to bother venturing into the discussion of ‘Will Google Plus Kill Facebook?” Why would I waste my time wondering that when I could be getting ahead of the game and start using it for what it’s going to be good at?

Here’s the good stuff I’ll be using Google+ for.

1) Circles: Circles is how Google+ allows me to accurately group my followers so that I can be more targeted about the information I share and the information I receive. This isn’t a power trip, just a simple recognition that not all of my followers have the same interest. So I’ll be that much more effective when it comes to truly engaging with like minded people.

2) New Strategies: Google+ is NOT the same as Facebook. Therefore Google+ will not and should not be used the same as a Facebook Fan Pages. So I’ll be testing, trying and tweaking new social marketing strategies, an opportunity not otherwise presented (more on that to come in the future).

3) +1: +1 is Google’s version of the ‘Like’ button and you can pretty much bet on the fact that +1 will become a factor into Google’s search algorithm. Needless to say I’ll be all over the +1 map, integrating it into my sites.

4) Business Profiles: Google+ announced that business profiles will be announced a lot sooner than the planned. With that said, keep an eye for mine.

Ryan’s observations:

My advice?  Stop wasting your time debating about Google+, pondering how it’s all going to pan out. Dive in now, get started and figure things out along the way.

Here is the BIG idea, Google+notices are posted INSIDE everyone’s Gmail inbox, this is 100% REAL-TIME Gmail deliverability. This one point alone makes Google+ a must for any email marketer.

Second, SEO! Yes, SEO. When you write about a subject on Google+ and your circle friends Google that subject, your comments and links are displayed AUTOMATICALLY on Google’s page one. This is HUGE!’

No backlinking, no on-site optimization, just TONS of free traffic.

P.S. How are you going to use Google+?  Leave a comment below?

I had an interested thought this morning….

If someone were to ask you, who is _______ (fill in the blank with a name of someone you know about), how would you reply?

6 months ago, you might give a brief explanation and then follow up with a, “you should Google him/her.”

Today, I believe most of us would say, “You should Facebook him/her.”

This is a big deal for a few reasons

1- Just as the term Google became a verb, so has Facebook.  When a website name becomes a verb, is that when it’s finally made the crossover to big time? *I know we’ve been using Facebook as a verb for a while, but I think it’s now a more used verb than Google.

2- People are turning to the core of their social sphere for a lot more these days.  We’d rather refer to a stream of live information than turn to Google for their potentially dated insight.

I’ll prove it….Facebook me! You’ll find the most up-to-date, live information about me and what I do/ am doing. More so than on a Google search with dated web pages that I haven’t had the time to SEO!

Does this ring true with you? Comment below!

Learn More:

Facebook is no longer the underdog, and it’s not longer safe to ignore it because your competition may be leveraging it to take the upper-hand over you.

Go HERE to learn from 5 experts about how to use Facebook to boost your brand faster than anywhere else on the web.

New data was released by Silicon Valley Insider revealing that Facebook is the most time consuming website above Google and Yahoo. How much time is being spent on Facebook?

41.1 Billion minutes per month!

It’s a pretty impressive milestone for Facebook to pass.  They seem to be hitting a lot of milestones lately. Even still, Google came in at 39.8 Billion minutes per month.

Facebook and Google may be head to head on this one, but the minutes spent on each site are being used very differently from a user perspective.  Facebook may be getting the most minutes, but they’re going to have to continue to differentiate their monetization strategies (from Google) to suit their social environment if they want to get to Google’s success level.

With that said, I think they’re making steps in the right direction to make the most of their unique user experience.

How do you think Facebook could best monetize their users beyond what they already have in place? What should they be doing with their search engine?

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