Once again, it’s time to take a look back at another year of marketing advice and see what resonated with local businesses. Let’s take a look back at what advice we gave in 2013 and see what small businesses were interested in.
Most Visited
The following articles were the top 10 most viewed articles on the SuperMedia blog. The topics ranged from SEO to social media to blocking spam.
- How To Do SEO: Small and Local Business Guide for 2013 by Vu Thai
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is always a hot topic for small business marketing because everyone wants their website to show up first in search results, be it from Google, Bing or Yahoo!
- Honeypot Technique of Blocking Spam by Kim Perry
Kim’s article on limiting form submission spam on small business websites prompted a technical discussion of server-side versus client-side code, but in the end everyone agreed that stopping website form spam is a high priority for business owners and web developers, as well. - These Practices Will Get Your Website Penalized by Marion Jacobson
The response to Marion’s article proved that business owners are concerned about how Google views their websites. - A Better Setup of Google+ Local for Small Business Owners in 5 Steps by James Johnson
Google combined Google Places with Google+ and the process for merging the properties, as well as setting up a new Google+ Local account was confusing many business owners. 
Digital Advertising Trends – Advice Straight from the Experts by Melissa Shumaker
Melissa shared a summary of expert advice shared at the “Digital Advertising Trends” expert panel. Also included were videos of experts from Google, Yext, Facebook and SuperMedia advising small businesses on how to participate in Google, social media and mobile.
- Free Tools to Spy On Your Competition by Howard Huang
Who isn’t interested in what the competition is doing? Howard shared publicly available tools that not only show you how your business is doing in your online marketing efforts, but also how those same tools can be used to see what your competition is doing that you might be able to replicate or improve. - How to Write Truly Epic Blog Post Titles by Chris Irby
Chris explained that most visitors don’t make it past the headline, so it is extremely important to write attention-grabbing titles. - Free Advertising for Small Businesses by Scott Stirling
Why wouldn’t an article on free advertising be popular? Scott shared the many free resources for online advertising, as well 
How to Write a Useful Twitter Bio by Danielle Celmer
Danielle gave great advice on how to set up a Twitter profile for your business that will help visitor know who you are and attract more followers.- Top 3 Questions About Small Business Blogging by Marion Jacobson
Business blogging was the top topic on our blog this year and Marion answered the top 3 questions about business blogging in this article. This post was visited almost twice as many times as the previous entry in the top 10.
Most Discussed
The articles with the most comments were varied.
- 7 Things You Should Never Do on a Small Business Blog
- Spokesperson Training – Not Just For Press Interviews
- The Truth About SEO in 2013
- Top 3 Questions About Small Business Blogging
- Local Discovery: Can Customers Find Your Business?
- Honeypot Technique of Blocking Spam
- 10 Tips for Great SEO Copywriting in 2013
Most Shared
The following are the most shared posts, by social network.
Twitter
- How To Do SEO: Small and Local Business Guide for 2013
- How to Write a Useful Twitter Bio
- 7 Ways to Grow the RIGHT Kind of Traffic to Your Website
- Please Don’t Create a Twitter Account for Your Business
- On-Page SEO: The 12 Essential Elements
Facebook
- Strategy of Answering Questions – Oh No You Didn’t Just Ask Me That
- Reputation Management Lessons from Lance Armstrong and Arnold Schwarzenegger (and others)
- How To Do SEO: Small and Local Business Guide for 2013
- Spokesperson Training – Not Just For Press Interviews Anymore
- Why Your Mobile Marketing Sucks
Google Plus
- Still Unclear on Google’s Author Rank and Authorship?
- Reputation Management Lessons from Lance Armstrong and Arnold Schwarzenegger (and others)
- Google Cracking Down on Google+ Local Reviews
- Free Tools to Spy On Your Competition
- You CAN’T Be #1 in Google
LinkedIn
- 7 Things You Should Never Do on a Small Business Blog
- Please Don’t Create a Twitter Account for Your Business
- 7 Ways to Grow the RIGHT Kind of Traffic to Your Website
- Why You Should Be Using Google Analytics
- Is Your Website Ready for Cyberweek?
- How to Market Your Business on Vine
- Still Unclear on Google’s Author Rank and Authorship? [Infographic]
- The Great Social Customer Service Race [Infographic]
- Social Media By the Numbers [Infographic]
- 10 Tips for Great SEO Copywriting in 2013 [Infographic]
Seeing what content was most popular and which content was shared on which networks helps us understand what our audience is looking for and how they interact with our content. Hopefully, we will take this information and make the SuperMedia blog a better resource for you.
