Image Courtesy: Amdesign

The changing trend of search engines to rank sites based on the customers’ experience (and other social signals) rather than mere SEO techniques has made many businesses resort to the social networking medium, which could give them a heavy fan following and hopefully better page ranking. When it comes to the online social arena, there are some good and legitimate ways as well as unethical ways to do this. However, the changing rules and regulations could lead to suspension and eventual ban of your company on those social media platforms if you don’t pay attention. So, you need to update yourself due to changing needs of the customer base and social requirements.

Here is how to manage your social media profile and become more popular by avoiding spam:

#1: For your company web page / website:

The reach of social media to a greater mass eventually promotes the business, regardless of its being small or big, on various social networks. You could opt to use some or even all from the list of available social networking media like Facebook (FB), Google Plus (G+), Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and various others, but always keep in mind that there are rules for each site.

Planning and research: You need to do a lot of planning and research prior to creating a social profile, like you would do for any other marketing activity. You should setup your social media goals, and work accordingly.

Brand management: If you want to be a popular “brand” in the near future, it is really important that you always post and comment only the facts with the proof. Never create an irrelevant matter without any connection for your business, because if it will ever be traced by your followers, it will be considered as a breach of their trust. It is thus important for you to be honest in providing information that is true and can be verified.

Providing a personal touch with community responses: It would always be appreciated and prove to be an added advantage for your business profile if you thank your followers for their FB liking and tweets and regularly help them in various queries according to your expertise. Your good behaviour will eventually reveal your inclination and motivation towards your business.

Start a blog and create content to share: A blog has become inevitable, which will help to portray your feelings and offerings in front of a huge mass of people. A blog is an effective medium to attract followers as well as propel them to share your content to gain fan following. It is necessary that you are active on both your blogs and social profile. Your content must be innovative and original, and in a tone that will make your readers share and like it.

Adding buttons for sharing on social media: It is normal that your website as well as blogs will get visitors who will surely want to share it with their contacts on the social networks. Thus, it is favourable to add an easy to share button that you could incorporate by asking your webmaster or website designer. Every share and like reflects the increasing traffic to your blogs and websites.

Email Newsletter subscriptions and RSS Feeds: An additional facility for your visitors to get daily/ weekly/ monthly newsletter will help your customers to get the latest updates with your information, advice, blog postings etc. RSS feeds could also help you boost your promotions.

#2: For your social profile:

Facebook is the most used social network. While Google plus has a large professional following, Twitter is good for daily updates and promotion. Also, LinkedIn will give you professional exposure and Pinterest certainly allows you to share images and videos concerned with your businesses. So, if you have a great fan following on your social profiles, it will certainly add to your search engine SERPs as well.

Firstly, make an appealing profile that has relevant information regarding your company, products, services and various other information and try to make an easy to remember Facebook URL, Twitter Username, and LinkedIn profile name etc, which will help your followers come to your page frequently without any much effort.

Use graphics and customizations on your profile page. The more appealing and attractive your page, the more time and focus it will get from the visitor. You could add interactive themes and options that could engage them and give a refreshing feeling.

Interact with other users and encourage them to share your profile with others through attractive posts and status updates. Make use of the promotional offerings that are provided by these social networks intended to promote your business and products. But, always keep a balance between the business and personal posts on your blogs and the profile pages; if they do not have any resemblance then it is better to avoid them while adding/posting.

Create new and viral matter: Every person wants to see and read about new and up to date things. Searchers are always in need of good and fresh material that could quench their thirst for quality. If they like your content, they will surely share it over many social platforms, thus making it viral in a lesser time.

End note: You will find it a hell of a task to implement all the suggestions at one go. You could use them as per your convenience and change them through a certain period to provide a changing and soothing experience to your followers.

Author Bio:

Sanket Patel is the Founder of Blurbpoint.com, a leading SEO Company since 2006 specializing in Advanced Guest Blogging Services, SEO Services, Link Building, Online Reputation Management, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing and many more. He has extensively researched on the ultimate recovery process of Panda/Penguin which is working successfully these days.

Email: sanket@blurbpoint.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SEO.BlurbpointMedia
Twitter: http://twitter.com/blurbpoint
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/blurbpoint
Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/106037923634996585528/

To qualify for entry, you need to be an organizations, agency, and or an individual based or working in the USA search and digital marketing industry. Entries open today (May 1) and close on July 19th.

There are loads of categories (21 in all) for campaigns, software, teams, blogs, and people (this is starting to sound like a lot of work for me now….) so hopefully this event will do as well here as it’s done across the pond.

• Best Use Of Search in Finance
• Best Use Of Search in Gaming
• Best Local Campaign
• Best Low Budget Campaign
• Best Mobile Campaign
• Best PPC Campaign
• And many more…each category has an entry button under it here:

The awards dinner will be held at Las Vegas’s Treasure Island, during Pubcon. Currently other than myself, the judges include Mel Carson, Richard Gregory, and Rand Fishkin but more names will be added to that list. I’m definitely in good company!

Unfortunately, knowing how much writing you can expect from a writer isn’t even if you aren’t a full-time writer yourself. Too add to the confusion, it’s tough to know how you should set goals for a full-time writer because SEO writing is still such a new industry. The best thing you can do is hear what has worked for SEO writers in the past—as a full-time guest blogger for two years now, I’ll try and do my best!

Possible Guest Posting Goals for Your New Writers

It’s important to remember that the quality of articles is incredibly important, so you don’t want to over-shoot when it comes to goals. It’s best to start out fairly simple and slowly increase goals for writers. I have found that there are really two major ways that companies set goals for their guest bloggers: Number of articles or success of articles. The details of both include:

1. Number of Articles. This typically works best for a company just getting started with managing a writer for guest posting. It’s easy, and it gets the writer used to writing quality and writing for SEO and online visibility purposes. Try starting your writer or writers with a goal of 15 articles live per month. Then move to 25, to 35 and then finally moved to 45. Keep tabs on how things are going and change the goals based upon the work your writer is doing. When he/she continues to exceed your goals, the goal should increase. I have found that 45 is a good solid number, but it depends completely upon your industry and any other projects you have your writers doing. It’s all going to have to be about trial and error.

2. Success of Articles. This works best if you have a lot of time and resources to really devote to monitoring each and every article. This also works better if you have some experience managing a guest posting strategy and if your writer already has contacts and an understanding of how guest blogging works. This means that things such as number of clicks, social shares, or a change in a keyword ranking would become more important. Overall, this is a more beneficial goal for a company.

You should monitor the reach of your writer’s articles, and then tie in the goals. A few examples of ways to make this happen include:

1. Look at the PageRank of each individual webpage where you place a guest post to get a feel for the popularity.

2. Consider giving Google Analytics access to your writer so he/she can track the success of the posts. I think it would make sense if someone (potentially the writer) took a look at where our clicks are coming from and then relayed that information back to the writers. For example, a “how to” article might always be best, or an article on a particular site may always be best. You can read Kikolani’s Kissmetrics guest article to learn more about ways you might be able to keep track of all your data. Having goals tied to this information may have something to do with a point system or just an overall analysis by you.

If you currently manage writers for guest posting purposes, what kinds of goals do you put in place for them? What has worked for you in the past and what has not? Let us know your story and your thoughts in the comments below.

Photo Credit: matthewrae.com

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer for Viral Content Buzz, a new platform designed to help you get more eyeballs on your quality content via major social channels like Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and Pinterest. You can also find her writing for the nationally recognized SEO firm, Higher Visibility. Visit the VCB Google+ page for more information.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on Search Engine Journal discussing some of the top SEO books to read. Although their books may have not made it on my list, many authors do have specialized books out there that might work well for your company or for a specific problem your company may have. And so, creating a list of some of the top SEO authors to read seemed necessary. These authors include:

1. Avinash Kaushik, Web Analytics in an Hour a Day.

Kaushik is a great author because things are kept easy and straightforward. Analytics are not the easiest things to master, but this author helps keep complicated and advanced topics sounding basic so that it’s easier to understand.

2. Steve Krung, Don’t Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy.

This author often attends different SES conferences to help spread his knowledge of the industry. This makes it evident that he is a leader in the industry and is interested in learning from others.

3. Paddy Moogan, The Link Building Book and editor of website Distilled.

It’s always great when a prominent online writer decides to publish something offline, and that is just what Moogan did. Check out Distilled first to get a feel for the type of writing Moogan does, and then consider reading the book all about link building (and there is a lot to know!).

4. Greg Jarboe, YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day.

The fact that Jarboe writes about video marketing is cool because he, as you can probably guess, puts out a lot of videos. This makes it easy to read his book and be able to keep up with any updates he has on the subject.

5. Rebecca Lieb, The Truth About Search Engine Optimization.

This is another author that frequents different conventions and goes around talking about her publications. Although her book was published a few years ago, many of its teaching still remain the same. You can check out a YouTube interview of Lieb here.
Do you know of any great SEO authors? What book did you find most helpful? What was it about his/her writing style that you enjoyed? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Photo Credit: drewsmarketingminute.com

Amanda DiSilvestro is a graduate of Illinois State University. Although she graduated with an English Education degree, she found herself working as a full-time blogger in the SEO/social media department at HigherVisibility SEO, a leading franchise SEO services company.

When it comes to link building, it is not better to burn out or fade away, though you do run the risk. It could happen to the best of us if we aren’t careful. When you come home and your roommates ask you, “How was work today?” chances are you might say, “the same as yesterday”, especially in the world of link building. It’s a tedious and frustrating thing sometimes and there have been times when I never wanted to see another bing results page in my life. So how do you spice things up and prevent burnout as a link builder? Well, it depends really. What kind of personality do you have? What are your interests? What problems are you having?

The most common complaints I’ve heard have been in regards to the monotony of the process, often in combination with sitting at the computer for hours at a time. Well, those complaints are real but they don’t have to be that simple either (or overwhelming). If you’re struggling with the monotony of the day, you should be taking action to insure you aren’t doing the same things every single day. At the very least, you should be breaking up your time with different activities, goals, and tasks. Look for new ways to work on discovery like setting up a Twitter account and following people that share some of your own interests. The internet is a very big place so don’t feel like you have to go through the same searches over and over again. Learn to use social media to your advantage. Make friends with webmasters and let them do some of the work for you. If they run a quality site, chances are they learned from other people while making friends in the process. Use blogrolls from quality sites to cut down on crap sites you’d have to sort through otherwise. Let people know you’re interested in doing business and follow through in a professional manner. Before you know it, you’ll be getting emails from sites you may not have seen before. I promise this will help cut down on the frustration factor.

I’ve read several articles about how getting up and moving for just a couple of minutes can do wonders for your mind and body. You need to get your blood flowing for your brain to work properly. So every hour or so take some time to get up, stretch, walk around. Forget about what you’re doing for a moment and clear your head. Have a cigarette or take your dog for a short walk, whatever you want as long as you’re getting off your butt for a few minutes. It’s a good way to find new inspiration and it will work wonders when it comes to returning to your computer with a fresh perspective. Speaking of new ideas, read the newspaper or at least be aware of what people are talking about. Remember the elections? It wasn’t much of a stretch to tie in a whole host of clients to that. I found so many sites I never would have otherwise just because I took advantage of what people were talking about at the time. Link building is not meant for those who want to stick to a single routine. You have to stay up-to-date on what’s going on to remain relevant and productive.

Don’t feel like you have to be a machine either. You are not a spam bot, you’re a person. Find ways to balance your work load. Did you send out 100 emails yesterday? Then don’t feel too bad about spending a few minutes sorting your playlist or reading an article on your favorite site. You’ll be judged not only by how many links you get (if that is how productivity is measured in your office), but the quality of those links as well. So take it one link at a time. My most successful months have been those when I wasn’t trying to get X amount of links for the month. Instead, when I’m relaxed and clear-headed (i.e. not stressing/freaking out), I almost always have a better month than those when I’ve been stressed, distracted and running the risk of a burn out.

And don’t forget that your personal life will affect your professional life too. Burnouts could come from a combination of factors (that may not have anything to do with work), so take a day for yourself if you need to. Getting burned out means you’re pushing yourself too hard and you might be amazed by how much a day off could help. A happy link builder will almost always be a better and more productive link builder. Take care of yourself, get creative, and I bet you’ll find a whole new (burnout-free!) perspective.

Why does everyone go around preaching that all SEOs must have a comprehensive understanding of HTML, Ruby/Rails/Javascript, photoshop, “The Elements of Grammar” committed to memory, marketing backgrounds, psychology courses under their belt, and a devilish grin to boot? Ain’t nobody got time for that. Instead, you have to acknowledge that SEO, technology, and consumer psychology aren’t one-off lessons but sciences that evolve as quickly as the passing day. For this reason, I cringe whenever I see search engine optimization courses advertised. Furthermore, it’s painful to me – it hurts me inside – to think that employers might take this as “credibility” over someone with SEO experience and real-world success.

One of the best way to steel yourselves against a bad SEO hire is to seek candidates with a relentless thirst for knowledge, not necessarily the one-man-band of tech skills. Don’t get me wrong: authority citations of all colors can only help, whether they’re SEO crash courses or not. What I’m saying is this: as a potential hire – when it comes to personal growth and expanding your mind – be all-inclusive.

It’s important to hire people that thirst for knowledge, especially so in SEO. Google’s Avinash Kaushik is known to frequently use the phrase “in their quest for knowledge” when speaking about UX, and rightly so. Please replace “in their quest for products” and “in their quest for a solution” with this.

What do you WANT to learn?

I’m truly fortunate to have a peer who enjoys and shares these nerdy-as-all-get-out lecture DVDs called “The Great Courses” with me. Holy flying poppy queens, they’re challenging and so enjoyable. Sweet Dr. Jennifer Paxton, bless you, because when I’m ravenously learning, I’m more easily inspired. I find as many avenues in my life to apply this new information to, even if it is Medieval history. Getting into an educational rhythm wherein I must consume a lot of enjoyable information in intervals makes me more focused, more calm, more confident; most importantly, it improves my ability to work in an industry wherein I must consume a lot of technical information.

Delicious synapses!

Wait, what am I saying? That those “How Spelunking Made Me a Better SEO” posts aren’t BS afterall? Is that what I’m saying?

In a word, yes, but in a singular sense. Spelunking won’t make us ALL better SEOs; it’s just what turned someone else on, inspired them, fed their brain, and set off all kinds of other delicious synapses in their life. You need to set off synapses of your own. Will medieval history make me a better SEO? 100% without a doubt, yes, it will. But only because it inspires and enlightens me in ways that truly repair my brain and spirit. More on this in a minute.

Within relevance, though, what do you want to learn? How to design mobile apps? Does that seriously tickle your fancy? No? It bores you? Then why in the world are you doing it? Seriously? Stop that. It’s not going to make you any money because you don’t care. What do you care to learn? Do you want to improve your international clientele? Has world travel always appealed to you? Take a few foreign languages. Get on that Rosetta Stone like white on rice. Don’t let it be a flash in the pan, or else you’re more likely to let the things you love be flashes in the pan.

Trust me. As a serial quitter, I can verify this. Make things happen for yourself.

What do you NEED to learn?

I, for one, am a pretty epic public speaker. Epic in the bad sense. I suck at it. This year, I am going to facilitate more brainstorms and meetings with my coworkers, and work my way up to joining Toastmasters. I don’t yet know how developing public speaking skills could enhance my life as it’s something that I characteristically shy away from, but I feel like it needs to happen. Either way, this does not fall under something that I want to do. Perhaps it’s my hesitation, but it feels like a change I must make. This is very different from making yourself do really unriveting things just because you think you ought to.

What about you? What do you stubbornly hesitate to learn? What is it, that you buck up against with foolish pride, forcing a smile about why you “can’t” do something? Is it because the rest of us are wrong? Or is it you? And what is it exactly? What scares you? Don’t tell me – just do it. Do. it.

Things you probably do need to learn, though:

• Basic social media outreach – how to make friends and win people over on Twitter and Facebook. You need to know what Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+ are too, but you don’t have to be a rockstar at them. Trying to rock at Google+ when you don’t care about it (or loathe it) is just going to be a time-suck with no foreseeable carrot at the end of the stick. There should always be a carrot.
• Basic HTML – Do you know how to insert a link into a block of text into an email or a blog post without clicking that cute chain icon? It goes a little something like a href – and if this looks alien to you, you need to take the time to familiarize yourself with it and other basic HTML elements. And I promise it won’t be painful.
• How to write interesting content. The world of SEO will do and say crazy things for a link. Like taking pictures of a sunny sky in Greensboro, North Carolina, or mailing a package full of nerf darts to a popular blogger. The least of these (on the craziness scale) is content production. If you don’t know how to write a post without using a comfortable formula or a Top Ten list, you need to reexamine the niche you’re operating in. Don’t you have any questions about the industries you work in? Find out the answers, or at least find more questions. Familiarize yourself with commonly used expressions and acronyms in your niche and develop your content like an actor would develop a character.
• This, this, and this:

Here are some of the best resource lists to tap into for your SEO self-education:
Blogs, Feeds, Follows, and Subscriptions for Keeping Up with SEO
145 Articles to Make SEO Your Bitch
SEO 101 Resources: Beginner’s Guides and Tutorials

What can you learn for free?

This is tough to navigate, especially in the educational sphere as a lot of educationally-oriented queries are asphyxiated with affiliate programs. The mobile app sphere is even worse – I’d daresay that Google’s own Play Store is the single largest spam resource in the free world. Ever tried to find an Android app that teaches you Portuguese, for example? It’s appalling, the time people will invest into producing free (worthless) ad-supported material. Just think of the sheer quantity of valueless apps parents are downloading for their children to use under the guide of “education.”

Try not to be what Aaron Wall calls a “freetard”. That being said, there are extremely valuable and legitimate programs online that are free of cost, widely available, and require nothing but your time. Rather than list them all out, I suggest you take a look at the list is available here (this links to one of my favorite Reddit comments ever.)

For the sake of specificity, I do recommend SEOs take CS50X: Introduction to Computer Science, from HarvardX. A free Harvard course with no pre-requisites that will increase your hirability in the tech sphere, especially when it comes to programming-heavy verticals, definitely dodges the “freetard” bullet, in my opinion anyway. I have not (yet) taken the course, but have heard from frustrated friends who struggle to hire decent SEOs and programmers recommend it. I plan to take it next fall and can hardly wait to dive in.

What else can you do?

Expand your existing Google alerts (and include your every scholastic interest)

• “search engine” tutorial algorithm indomain:youtube
• “panda update” competitive niche filetype:pdf
• creative link building inurl:”2012″
• guest lecture free “Greensboro NC”

The idea is to explore all of the different boulevards and mediums of knowledge discovery: video, social media, up-to-date blog entries, app stores (for new apps and methods of study), image search (infographics in their classic, pre-SEO form will never die – sod off about it, eh?) and… fill in the blank with about 13 other things that I’m missing here. Google Alerts is such an excellent academic tool because it routinely fetches and centers your research when you aren’t even looking for it. It feels like one of the most underestimated tools around, even by SEOs who are fully aware of ways it can-might-could-will help.

Interact with peers & teachers at every chance

Keep your eyes open for Tweet-ups, Google+ Hangouts (ugh, I know) and Q&A opportunities such as SEOmoz’s Pro Webinars, in which live chatters can ask questions. Go to Meetups (get out from behind a screen? Whoa, Nelly.)

Participate in forums as well as Q&A sites like Quora. Don’t be afraid to ask questions – I genuinely appreciate the experts who aren’t afraid to appear as if they don’t know everything about search. Sometimes being able to ask the right question, even if it goes unanswered, is the mark of a pro.

Little Tweaks to Augment Your Self-Education

Change your home search engine to WolframAlpha for just one week.
I dare you. It’s not just for data heads and queries such as “are snails territorial?” (not a proud moment, for reasons unknown) – you can find a lot of news and pop culture information, too. It will, at the very least, change your perception on knowledge retrieval and query creation – elements that disengage when we get used to using a single tool or tool set (always a bad idea.) Their Community Forums have a lot of potential and a few of them are thriving. Also, who doesn’t love a good rhyming dictionary?

No time to read? Listen to audiobooks in the shower/clean/eat dessert
Admit it. The Today Show isn’t as memorable as the books you read; why not replace one with the other? The arts are a much more positive way to measure your life than inescapable, depressing news and Kardashian pregnancies. The family dinner table is a place for discussion and bonding, so save story-time for breakfast or dessert. Candide pairs better with ice cream and sprinkles than steak and potatoes, anyway. If you walk to work, get those MP3s in your ears. Consider the moments of your day that are otherwise filled with silence or noise, and fill it with what LibriVox calls the “acoustical liberation of books.”

Don’t let your ‘Bucket List’ stagnate – actively pursue life.
If you haven’t written a bucket list yet, do it. Cheesy as it is. Keep it somewhere close, somewhere you’ll run into it frequently. Put it on your wall, or maybe your fridge. Some of mine include:

• Sample as many boutique pizzerias in Rome as physically possible
• Learn sign language
• Sing in front of people other than my daughter

Don’t forget to make a work bucket list, too. An SEO might find the following on their own list:

• Take a programming course
• Develop a mobile app, it doesn’t have to be perfect.
• Get a client’s content on the front page of reddit

Pay it forward, whatever “it” is, by helping and encouraging others to learn.
What’s a lesson you recently learned? You may, for instance, have learned how to thread a sewing machine or how to set up a reel mower, like this manly-like-nobody’s-business man. Make a tutorial, PDF, or a mini-infographic. Something that people (perhaps over a thousand of them) will see, and can share.

Immerse yourself in local art, for the sake of networking… and art.
One of my favorite local music discovery tools is Bandcamp. I can’t tell you how insanely proud I am to be a mover and shaker in the North Carolina musical arts scene, because we have so much awesomeness within it. I’ve also made many friends and found a few techie contacts in the process. True story. Facebook-stalking your friends’ Likes is also an effective, albeit slightly creepy, way to go about it, too.

Quick note: musicians are always interested in SEO. Musicians make great SEOs, too. Ever wanted to learn how to play the concertina? You never know, it might just improve your ability to focus and your ability to create great content, thus improving your SEO efforts.

And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have 50 broke but cool clients than one rich, asshat client.

Reddit + Explain Like I’m Five
This is the sub-reddit that sold me on reddit – trust me, it wasn’t cat pictures, sigh. Explain Like I’m Five (ELI5) takes questions on potentially complex or scientific subjects and breaks them down into very digestible answers. These questions have covered really fascinating topics such as, Why does FM radio sound pretty good and AM sound like it’s coming to us live from the 1920s? (link). You might also appreciate Explain Like I’m Calvin, for those Calvin and Hobbes fans out there.

Becoming an active redditor can increase your authority and trust in a vertical. For instance, you can ask questions in just about any sub-reddit (such as What is this bug? It’s probably a carpet beetle larvae) and you’ll usually get an answer from someone who knows what they’re talking about.

TL;DR Reddit is great for both educational purposes and increasing your authority in a niche.

I’d like to close with one of my favorite quotes about knowledge and self-improvement.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who come alive.” – Howard Thompson

How can you apply this quote to your life? WHAT makes you come alive anyway? What is it that you love SEO for? Go, and do that.

Click to enlarge

Disclaimer: this post is not meant to be a political commentary on any party, nor is it an endorsement for any candidate. Please refrain from making political comments that are not directly related to the search industry and political search behavior; disrespectful comments will not be published. None of the statements below represent Link Fish Media, Inc.

The data reflected in this analysis was gathered between October 10th – 12th of 2012. Since publishing Part 1 in July, there have been a few significant developments in both the American election and in Google Insight:

• Mitt Romney received the Republican nomination as its chosen presidential candidate, eliminating Ron Paul.
• Google combined Insights with Trends as a tool, with a far superior UI. The new tool is keeping the name “Trends”.

For obvious reasons, I have chosen to delete Ron Paul from this case study, and have added the VP candidates in his place. The other variations from Part 1 are that a) I’ve included the top 2 states that pull the most electoral weight, California and Texas, as they seem to bear significant narrative in the American election process, and b) limited the time table to 2012 only. As previously, all trends shown are for the United States, limited to web-search only (as opposed to News, Images, or Products searches.)

Notes:

Please note that “generic terms” in this analysis could include terms that overlap in an excessive nature and aren’t extremely relevant, such as the combination of candidate names like “romney obama” or “obama biden” or searches with “2012” and “news” attached. These generic terms are found in many states for each candidate, and as thus, they bear a significance in and of themselves as a search behavior. To reduce redundancy, however, these sprawling generic terms are not included in the rest of this report.

States Examined:

Swing States: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin
Note: These states were combined from two different sources – Conservapedia.com and 270towin.com.
Most liberal: Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington
Most conservative: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina
Note: The two lists above were chosen from a list informed by a 2011 Gallop poll, taking population into account over percentage.
Top 2 electorally-significant: California (55 electoral votes), Texas (38 electoral votes).

Terms examined: Obama & Barack Obama, Romney & Mitt Romney, Joe Biden & Paul Ryan, and Michelle Obama & Ann Romney.

Obama & Barack Obama

The states searching for information about Obama (either phrase, totals combined) are Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, and New York. Generic search terms dominate related terms, and just as was the case in July, First Lady Michelle Obama appears among them. What does this say about American voters? Perhaps it says that even after four years, Americans are still driven to know more about the First Lady and view her role as very important indeed.

Noteworthy National Breakout Term

The #1 breakout term for Obama is “Obama 2016″, which is the title of a film released over the summer; the biographical film casts a critical/unfavorable light on the President.

Liberal State Trends

Each liberal state examined displays interest in speeches and the debates; also prevalent are “obama care”, “DNC”, and “polls”. States with geographic interest (presumably for speaking events and appearances) are Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington. Massachusetts is searching for Obama’s Twitter page – it will be interesting to see where else social media manifests.

New York has an interesting search popping up – “Obama phone” – which stems from a video criticizing Obama for the Lifeline program, which provides cellphones for low income individuals. They’re also the only state examined that’s still searching for “Obama singing”, which had been an extremely popular search in July.

Conservative State Trends

Some of the terms showing up in conservative states are “flag” and “movie”; the latter refers to the aforementioned documentary, the former to a controversial flag flown over Lake County (FL) Democratic Party Headquarters which replaced the 50 stars with an image of Obama. Only Louisiana searchers are looking for geo-related terms.

To compare this analysis with Part 1, conservative states have undeniably ramped up searches since July. For Obama-related searches, queries have more than doubled since July.

Swing State Trends

How many swing states are among top searchers for this term nationally? 4 (Virginia, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina)

Fewer swing states are searching for Obama’s speaking dates, but of the states that are, there are more queries. For instance, Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Ohio all have 3 or more geographic locations in their searches (appearances and speaking dates), but joining North Carolina in its lackadaisical approach to local appearances are Pennsylvania and Virginia. Swing states overall have a good mix of queries that show up in both liberal and conservative states, but with more searches with the word “bio” in them (which only showed up in the liberal state of New Jersey.)

Electorally-Significant State Trends

California searches like a liberal state (most Americans would agree that California is a fairly liberal state) but with an added Hollywood flourish: rising in popularity by 90% is the term “Barack Obama height”. They, too, are searching for Obama’s Twitter account. Trending in Texas searches are the same as trends in conservative states without exception, just at a higher volume.

Romney & Mitt Romney

Regional Interest in Romney

The top 5 states searching for information about Mitt Romney are Utah, Idaho, New Hampshire, DC, and Massachusetts. As notes in Part 1, Utah has the highest Mormon population in the country, followed by Idaho. Romney, of course, was the governor of Massachusetts from ’03-’07. Regions that share a personal commonality with Romney are the most interested, it appears. The swing states are certainly conducting more complex searches for a range of issues.

National Noteworthy Breakout Term:

Nothing too unexpected here, although it is rather interesting that “Mitt Romney sons” has increased by 350% in search popularity, most of which are looking for Craig Romney. Perhaps this is due to the popularity of a “Hey Girl” Tumblr page featuring photos of Craig.

Liberal State Trends

At this point in the analysis, it’s becoming apparent that keywords with “tax”, “debate”, “speech”, “video”, and “polls” are as ever-present as generic keywords. All liberal states except Washington are searching for information about Romney’s dog incident. Washington, instead, is searching for information about Romney’s Mormonism; a rising search in New Jersey on Oct. 11 had the word “college” attached to it, but the trend disappeared quickly thereafter. This is what makes elections such fascinating subjects of search trends to study, especially with less than a month before voting day, when all major news outlets churn out political content daily.

Conservative State Trends

Even in 2012, conservative states are searching for Romney a lot less than Obama – about 80% less – which is somewhat surprising. Other than generic terms, the conservative states are searching for debate and poll information. Alabama is the only conservative state searching for Romney’s local speaking dates. South Carolina is searching for biographical information.

Swing State Trends

Rising terms for Romney in Florida.

In Florida, it’s almost humorous how Nicki Minaj, a pop star who has endorsed Romney, is among Romney’s top terms. Nicki Minaj’s #1 national breakout term in 2012 is “Nicki Minaj Romney”. “Nicki Minaj” curiously doesn’t show up in any other state but Texas, even though it’s the #1 breakout term for Romney on a national level. Perhaps the most interesting thing to manifest in this entire analysis is the last term in the image above: Mitt Romney Facebook. Social media has turned up once again, and for a Republican candidate. Obama’s social media terms were all for Twitter, and Romney’s only term is Facebook.

North Carolina seems to be the only state with a lack of interest in local speaking dates; Virginia and Colorado seem particularly interested in seeing Romney speak. Searches for Romney’s “views” and “issues” manifest only here, but in three different states: North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Six of the nine swing states are searching for terms related to the dog incident.

Electorally-Significant State Trends

A couple of new terms show up in electorally-rich California: “Romney Mexican” and “Romney Olympics”, speaking to the candidate’s experience with the Salt Lake City winter Olympics and his father’s birth on a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico. A Nicki Minaj-related term shows up as one of Texas’s related terms, as well as information about Ann Romney, taxes, and “Mitt Romney dog”, which doesn’t show up as a term in any of the conservative states studied.

Joe Biden & Paul Ryan

National Related Terms for Vice Presidential Candidates

When compared side-by-side, it appears that searches about the vice presidential candidates are less generic and more specific. And perhaps to some, more entertaining. Chains, gaffes, and shirtlessness, indeed. Given the diversity of the issues here, a search for image trends between the candidate reveal that people are looking for photos of “young Joe Biden” and “Paul Ryan shirtless”.

Noteworthy National Breakout Term

“Joe Biden Biker” is the #1 breakout term for Biden, which refers to Biden’s somewhat controversial dining experience in Ohio with a female biker sitting on his lap. The #1 term for Paul Ryan is “Paul Ryan marathon”, which refers to Ryan’s admittedly exaggerated claim about his running time for a marathon.

Liberal State Trends

Hardly anyone is searching for Joe Biden in liberal states, with the exception of New York searching for “Joe Biden speech”. Oregon and Washington have very few search terms showing up for either VP candidate, but Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York are all looking for Paul Ryan “shirtless”. Other terms showing up for Ryan are “budget” and “plan”.

Conservative State Trends

Only Alabama and South Carolina had a single generic term for either candidate. None of the conservative states had enough search volume to consider anything “trending”.

Swing State Trends

Iowa and Nevada, like the conservative states, are not searching for either candidate. None of the swing states have search volumes for Joe Biden. For Ryan, however, most other states with search volume are looking for speaking dates, with the exception of Ohio, who are searching for “Paul Ryan Miami” (where Ryan attended college.) Florida and Pennsylvania seem to be the most interested in Ryan, as there are more biographical terms showing up here: “wife”, “bio”, and “wiki”.

Electorally-Significant State Trends

California wants to hear more gaffes from Joe Biden, and more information about specific gaffes from each: Joe Biden chains & Paul Ryan marathon. California is the only state searching for Paul Ryan’s wife by her name, Janna Ryan, rather than “Paul Ryan wife”. Texas has only one generic breakout term for Biden; it’s the usual searches for Paul Ryan, too: budget, polls, wife, shirtless, and plan all appear as rising terms.

Michelle Obama & Ann Romney

This section of analysis is particularly telling when it comes to American life: we are clearly captivated by the personalities and convictions of our First women. The above image displays the spike of interest in 2012 in each woman, which happened during their respective political party’s convention – and perhaps largely due to the speeches they gave.

Noteworthy National Breakout Term

On a national level, more specific terms show up for the First Ladies than generic terms. This has not happened for any other candidate thus far. Among searches for Obama are the terms “Michelle Obama dress”, “Michelle Obama Ellen”, “Michelle Obama pregnant” and “Michelle Obama disbarred”. Ann Romney’s terms show terms such as “Ann Romney women”, “Ann Romney dressage”, “Ann Romney shirt”, and “Ann Romney MS”. The US takes such an interest in the fashion choices of these two women.

Liberal State Trends

The only trend for both women is the word “speech” in all states but Oregon, where there isn’t enough search volume happening for Ann Romney. Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey are all searching for Michelle Obama “dress”; New York is searching for information about Ann Romney’s MS and “Ann Romney women”. Washington is searching for speaking dates for Michelle Obama, specifically in Seattle.

Conservative State Trends

Not enough searches are happening in conservative states for Ann Romney, period. Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina are all searching for “Michelle Obama speech”.

Swing State Trends

All swing states are searching for “Michelle Obama speech” except Nevada, where there isn’t search volume for either woman. Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania are particularly interested in Mrs. Obama as demonstrated by trending terms like “Michelle Obama pregnant”, “Michelle Obama dress”, and “Michelle Obama DNC”. Iowa, Nevada, and Wisconsin have no search volume for Mrs. Romney, but all other swing states only have “Ann Romney speech” trending.

Electorally-Significant State Trends

California is searching for all of the Michelle Obama terms already noted, with the absence of “Michelle Obama ellen” and “Michelle Obama disbarred”. The same can be said about Ann Romney’s terms, with the absence of “Ann Romney dressage” and “Ann Romney shirt”. In Texas, Romney’s only top trend is “speech”; Obama’s are “speech”, “dress”, “dnc”, “flag”, and “pregnant”.

Takeaways

Conservative Research Behavior Speculation Follow-up

Conservatives – or conservative states – do not conduct a significant amount of political research on Google. One of the Takeaways in Part 1 speculated that conservative states research politics closer to election day, but this has proven not to be the case. While there are more searches being done than before, it is in no way proportionate to liberal and swing states. This leads to the belief that conservatives rely on other mediums for election information – perhaps television or print news media.

Opposing Party Queries

Aside from biographical terms (wife, bio, wiki, etc.) a lot of searches for the candidates are related to controversy: “Obama care” and “Obama movie” show up predominantly in conservative states; “Romney dog” and “Romney tax” appear in liberal states. It’s tempting to speculate that Americans carry out more research about the unfavorable aspects of the candidate that they’re least likely to vote for; if one is examining search volume, the statement is false. If one is examining the issues on a partisan, state-by-state  review, the statement is true.

The exceptions to this are Utah and Idaho, who make up a scale-tipping portion of searches for both Mitt Romney and Ann Romney. A quick look at the top terms for Mitt Romney in these states yield  not one but three queries with the word “Mormon” in them, as well as speaking date information queries. Utah and Idaho both have rising terms for “speech” for Ann, and Utah may perhaps be the only state searching for Ann Romney at a higher frequency than Michelle Obama. In Idaho, Michelle and Ann have an even number of searches.

Social Media

Social media has a presence in searches for both candidates, as it should: the use of technology and social media polarized the American presidential election narrative in 2008. The fact that “twitter” is searched in correlation to Obama, and “facebook” to Romney, is a fascinating point that perhaps deserves more speculation from social media experts. It’s noticeably absent from Vice Presidential candidate and First Lady search queries.

Major & Absent Issue Findings

Obama care is by far the biggest issue for the Obama campaign where search is involved, followed somewhat by the flag incident in Florida. The Romney campaign seems to be evenly divided on the issues of his taxes and the incident with the family dog. The fact that “Bain” or “Bain Capital” make absolutely no appearance in Romney searches, not even in a swing state, is noticeably absent from all Romney-related searches. “Obama supreme court” is also noticeably absent, which had a 450% rise in January, as noted in Part 1.

I’d like to introduce you all to three of my link builders who also happen to be fantastic musicians: Suzanne Stafford, Matty Sheets, and Dwight Mabe. And just because this is so bad ass it’s almost criminal, I need to tell you that Suzanne closed a link from the hospital RIGHT AFTER GIVING BIRTH. Matty and Dwight did not do that. Yes, it would be physically impossible but still…

I’ve always believed that creative types make amazing link builders, so I’ve asked these guys a few questions about how music plays a part in how they approach their work.

1. Were you actually properly trained as a musician or did it just kind of happen? How long have you been a musician?

Here’s Matty:

Matty: I took electric guitar lessons for a year when I was 8 years old. The teacher was obviously taking advantage of my parents because after a year I couldn’t even play a chord. We only picked out melodies like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and boring stuff like that. I was eight! I wanted to play Def Leppard and Prince and Michael Jackson songs. So I quit and took up the snare drum for a year or so in school, but only the three best players got to use the actual snare drums (the rest of us were on practice pads) so I quit that too. When I was 16 or so, I fell in love with acoustic guitar after watching this guy I knew – real asshole- play some Neil Young songs. I watched his hands making chords and moved my hand to the rhythm of his strumming hand and thought “I can do that.” After I got a really cheap Harmony acoustic guitar, I played all the time. I bought (and still have) TONS of chord books, scale books, John Lennon songbooks. I tried to make up chords and write songs all night, every night, really quietly so as to not wake up my parents.

Here’s Dwight:

Dwight: Yes. I began studying guitar at age 5 1/2 learning to read music and words at the same time. How long – that’s a loaded question, longer than anyone at the office has been alive except for Ed and Bobby – 50 years. I switched to bass at 14 and majored in music in college – BM performance UNC-G/UNC SOA conjunctly.

And here’s Suzanne:

Suzanne: I am not a trained musician. I began church choir when I was 6. Wrote my first song at 7, a rap about the Duke basketball team. Took piano lessons from age 9-12. Played Clarinet in middle school band. At 19 I began writing and recording pop/hiphop music. My stage name was “Suza”. I released an 11 song album called “Growin’ Up”. After that venture died out, I met a boy and we started a band called Scarlet Harlot. I was 24. He taught me some guitar chords. I began learning to play guitar at age 25. That band broke up when I was 27. Started Come Hell or High Water when I was 27. I taught myself more how to play guitar. I’ve written over 84 songs in the span between 19 and 34.

2. As a musician, do you find that you are more interested in certain industries that we work with? Have you found some difficult to relate to?

Matty: Actually the only clients I really relate to that we’ve done are the health and treatment clients because I’ve known so many people who have been in and out of rehab, or have overdosed on drugs. I actually really respect the work they do. I don’t know much about finance or typical business industries.

Dwight: Self employed interests me, as a musician is almost always a sub contractor. (Editor’s note: I take this to mean that Dwight relates to no client.)

Suzanne: I have a couple of clients I prefer, yes. I like the treatment and printing clients. I’ve had some recreational drug use in my day and have had some friends fall by the wayside with hardcore drug use. The printing clients are good for band promotion stuff, so that’s fun to “disco”. I would say my least favorite clients are the ones with so many restrictions with what they will and won’t take. I’m a musician, man. Don’t fence me in.

3. What music do you listen to when you’re building links?

Matty: If I am doing a bunch of discovery, I like to listen to stuff like Man Man, Battles, Deer Tick, Dick Wolf, The Leeves, Rancid, Operation Ivy, The Rentals, The Black Keys, Dead Weather, Jack White, The Flaming Lips, Sonny and the Sunsets, and The Beta Band.

Dwight: None. Any music playing grabs my attention and distracts me. That comes from my background having to learn music on the way to a gig or something like that. I could probably turn that off but I don’t want to as it is my forte.

Suzanne: I can’t stand listening to music when I’m building links. Can’t focus.

4. What songs that are on the office playlist make you want to tear your eyes out?

Matty: Most of them. All the poppy crap that Charlie adds because he thinks it’s funny. (Editor’s note: Charlie enjoys tormenting staff.)

Dwight: Too numerous to mention – but primarily the hip hop and schlocky stuff.

Suzanne: Don’t listen to office playlist. Can’t remember my password to Spotify, else I would log in and take a look.

5. I know that our office is full of people who are extremely creative, quirky, and interested in art, music, film, and fiction. Do you think that working in such a group makes you enjoy the job more? Have you worked anywhere where that was not the case and where you felt creatively boxed in?

Matty: I really do enjoy working with creative people, and I appreciate you recognizing the creativity in me. This is surely the only job I’ve had where that’s the case.

Dwight: That type of group is what is exactly why I like the office so much. Every job I’ve ever had working for someone else and I mean every, had nothing like this environment in any way shape or form. I wasn’t creatively boxed in – nothing creative was even allowed.

Suzanne: I love knowing that I work with cool people, even though I don’t work in the office. I was talking with my neighbor the other day who works at a bank and she was talking about how she couldn’t relate to any of those people. Two of my best friends work at Linkfish. Julie W. and Matty, my pisces brother and sister. We are all so much alike, and I think that’s really neat. Most jobs I’ve had have been artistic-like. Chinese delivery driver. I would read books on slow days waiting for deliveries. Bartender. Read more books on slow days, chewed on straws when I got nervous talking to people. I worked at a mortgage company for 3 years in my early twenties and I found ways to be creative there. Using colored fonts in Excel. They let me make fliers to fax to brokers.

6. If we had an office theme song, what would it be like? Don’t anyone mention dirty rap.

Matty: First Link of the Day! (To the tune of First Drink of the Day)

Dwight: It would have to be something very off the wall – probably ranging from straight melody to avant garde cacaphony.

Suzanne: Office theme song. Hmm. One Cigarette Away by Supersuckers? Seeing as the office has a bunch of smokers and if you don’t watch it you could be fired tomorrow.

7. In terms of writing content, do you feel that your work with music has made it easier for you to write a great article?

Matty: Not at all. I am a decent writer when I am writing about something I’m passionate about, or something I’m creating (like a song), but I’m not good at writing about finances or kitchens for example. I would have liked to write content for the treatment clients though. People’s battles with addictions, as well as my battles with my own addictions, are intriguing to me.

Dwight: Absolutely.

Suzanne: I am a good writer. When I write, I write good. Saying that, I have to feel inspired to write. And if I don’t feel inspired, I get stressed out about writing content. And it can take me a real long time. So. If I can, I avoid having to write content. If I write a song it’s cuz I sit down and it comes out. Not because I sit down to write a song. So no.

8. You’re used to being on stage…does this automatically make you more confidant and outgoing? I’ve read about so many musicians who say they can’t even look people in the eye off stage. You all certainly don’t seem shy or anything (cough) which I like, as shy people make me babble like I’m doing right now.

Matty: I truly love performing, for the most part, and I’ve felt more comfortable in the past doing that than talking to people afterwards or going to a grocery store. I do gain some confidence from performing though, and that has helped me hide my social awkwardness in other situations.

Dwight: God yes. While I was in college, I was either shy and withdrawn or obnoxiously arrogant – neither one of which was actually me. I was insecure nearly to the point of phobia. I had lots of great instructors but a couple of people taught me how to engage the audience with your own personality so that the music was not encumbered by stage fright. The great jazz trumpeter Clark Terry helped me to understand this by getting me to realize that your own personality is always the most engaging. He was not only a world renowned jazz trumpeter – he was an amazing articulate educator who made his later life’s helping up and coming musicians. And ten years of traveling on the road for half the year or more didn’t hurt.

Sunday evening at the Blind Tiger ended a nearly 18 year absence of me performing in Greensboro. I chose to to take it on as a bigger challenge by doing it solo (maybe I need a sanity check) but it went well as I went through Clark’s advice just before starting.

Suzanne: I’m not shy around people that are outgoing. But. If you put me in a room with a bunch of introverts, I’m going to be an introvert. I’m not that outgoing, no. And can be very shy. It takes a long time to get to know me. And when I get off stage, I want to run and hide and not to talk to anybody except people that I know well. I’m friendly, and I’ll smile…that’s what made me a good bartender, but often times I would chew on a straw if I was feeling anxious. I chewed a lot of straws. I feel very confident onstage. Lots of people have told me they couldn’t believe that “quiet suzanne” was on stage belting out tunes and dancing and that I was a whole other person.

9. If you were offered a fat record contract would you dump Link Fish in a skinny minute? Please say yes or I won’t believe you. Anyone willing to go on tour but build links after a show maybe? Maybe? Anyone?

Matty: They would have to really make the most perfect offer for me to quit my job or move out of my apartment. I would take a “vacation” and tour for a few months if I got the opportunity though.

Dwight: Of course, but such things really don’t exist any more. On tour, probably. Touring is not what you read about – it’s mostly boring except the shows.

Suzanne: If I were offered a fat record contract…well. That’s never gonna happen. So, yes. I’d build links on tour. Skinny record contract is more what I’d get, likely. I’d sell some songs in a hot minute though. If anybody knew who the hell I was. I’m not good at all at promoting myself.

10. Why don’t we have an office band, and why haven’t any of you asked me to play tambourine or something??? I’ll have you know that I did do a bang up job on the triangle whilst in high school. Perhaps you didn’t know that.

Matty: I will be holding auditions for a tambourine/ triangle/ cowbell player soon enough. As far as an office band goes- I would be interested, but songs having to do with computers should be strictly prohibited. We could write songs about blowing up Facebook or something though…

Dwight: Good question. Maybe a Klezmer band.

Suzanne: Anytime you feel drunk enough to jump up on stage and play tamborine, you are more than welcome.

Yay.

Thanks guys! And get the hell back to work now!!

Working from home is a double edged sword. You have a very flexible schedule, but you’re also on your own when you need some ideas. Here’s a few ways I kept my gears going when I was contracting.

Don’t Work from Home

First and foremost, don’t work from home. This will be your biggest downfall. When people think of a remote position, they immediately imagine working in their PJ’s. This is creative poison. Your not going to spark new ideas if you’re in your house seeing the same exact things everyday. You need to get your brain stimulated with different surroundings, people, and distractions.

I know distraction doesn’t seem like a very productive element, but when you’re trying to think outside the box and brain storm new ideas, it’s perfect. It keeps you from focused, tunnel thinking. It also gives your brain a little break. Instead of taking set 15-30 minute breaks, distractions can provide a steady stream of broken up thinking. Several little breaks.

This also keeps you from getting uncomfortable in your own home. The worst feeling is finishing up a ten hour work day and not being able to relax in your own home, because you’ve been working there all day.

If you do have to work from home, try sitting on your roof, yard, porch, etc. Get outside.

Find Other Remote Workers

Remote workers are everywhere in the tech industry. Find two or three people that also need to get out of their apartments and meet up with them. Take over that giant table in the corner of your local coffee shop.

Not only is this a great way to have some company while you’re working, it’s a great way to learn about other tech industries. You’d be surprised how much you can learn from fields even if they’re not directly related to search marketing.

Bounce Between Different Places to Work

Similarly to not working from home, you don’t want to get used to the place your at. Find and rotate between different places to work:

• Coffee Shops
• Parks
• Roofs (personal favorite)
• Lakes
• A Friends Office
• Library
• Train Stations (most have wifi)
• Cafe/Bar Style Lunch Spots
• Apartment Poolsides

I would definitely recommend getting Clearwire or using your phone as a hotspot. This breaks the barriers on where you can work and gives you a lot more freedom. Keep in mind though, you’ll be tied to places that have a decent phone signal.

Find a Communal Office

One of the easiest ways to solve the issues of working remotely, is to find an office! I know this seems counterproductive, but you get to pick your office. This is great, because a lot of tech startups have extra space and are willing to rent it out. You get the benefit of having a place to work outside your home and being around a creative startup environment.

There are also offices that are strictly communal. These are fantastic, because you’re working with several people that are in the same boat as you. They usually provide general office supplies, printers, coffee maker, kitchen, etc.

One step beyond that, is a strictly tech-related communal offices. These gems are rare, but they do exist. In a standard communal office you’ll be working with anything from architects to real estate agents. At first this seems like it would be more fun, but in a tech communal it’s way easier to relate. Plus, you’re still just as likely to work with folks doing completely random jobs, they just have a tech relation in one way or another.

Travel Often

This is more for the bachelor(ette) type. Since you’re not tied down to where you are anyways, do some traveling! You get to completely change your scenario and meet people with completely different mind sets. This is a great way to spark some ideas.

Obviously traveling isn’t cheap, and it’s hard to get any work done while you’re on the go. That’s why I would recommend going by train (you’ll need to connect to the net via cell tower). This way you’ll be able to work while you’re traveling and it’s much more cost effective.

You should also take this opportunity to visit your company or clients you’re working for. Check out their offices, you may discover something about them that will give you ideas. For example, one time I had a client that supplied all the shirts for the Austin City Limit’s staff. I never would’ve known this if I didn’t visit their office. This gave me more material to work with, both for link building and copywriting.

Stay Active in the Tech Community

This is something you should be doing anyways – get active and meet people in the tech industry in person. As long as you’re not in a tiny city, there will be plenty of Meetup groups that revolve around SEO and tech.

If you’re fresh to the search marketing industry, I would recommend sticking to SEO meetups. If you’re comfortable with your skill level, start veering off into other tech related industries. There’s a lot to learn from the development, tablet, and mobile industries especially. All of these can be correlated to SEO.

Conclusion

Keep your environment changing and branch out to other folks in the tech industry. These two things alone will not only keep you creative, they’ll help you expand your skill set.

These tips aren’t just for remote workers either. Even if you have an in-house position, ask your employer if you can spend one day a week working outside the office. It’ll help break up some of the monotony and make it easier to brainstorm.

Click to enlarge.

Disclaimer: this post is not meant to be a political commentary on any party, nor is it an endorsement for any candidate. Please refrain from making political comments that are not directly related to the search industry and political search behavior; disrespectful comments will not be published. None of the statements below represent Link Fish Media, Inc.

The point of this search behavior analysis is to find popular searches happening in the summer of 2012, prior to this autumn’s full-blown election season, using Google Insights, which is in Beta. An in-depth followup will happen in October. The fundamental ambition is to find concerns and issues Americans are most curious about per candidate, according to swing states and states deemed to be either predominantly liberal or predominantly conservative.

Please note that “generic terms” in this search could include searches that overlap in an excessive nature and aren’t extremely relevant, such as the combination of candidate names like “romney obama” or “ron paul santorum” or searches with “2012” and “News” attached. These generic terms are found in many states, for every time period, and for each candidate, and as thus, they bear a significance in and of themselves as a search behavior. To reduce redundancy, however, these sprawling generic terms are not included in the rest of this report.

All trend searches were conducted on Google Insight using “Web Search” only, between the days of July 9-11, 2012. Google Insights is a time-sensitive tool, and results will change from week-to-week, and sometimes day-to-day. Please keep this in mind.

A few expected trends prior to research:

• Due to familiarity with the current President, fewer generic searches are projected to be trending for “Barack Obama” and “Obama”.
• Correlative to this, public interest in “Romney”, “Mitt Romney” and “Ron Paul” are projected to trend at higher rates.
• Non-generic searches will show high interest in health care, particularly relating to the recent Health Care Plan from Obama, as well as Romney’s Health Care Initiatives in Massachusetts.

States examined, in alphabetical order:

Swing States: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin

Note: These states were combined from two different sources – Conservapedia.com and 270towin.com.

Most liberal: Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington

Most conservative: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina

Notes: The two lists above were chosen from a list informed by a 2011 Gallop poll, taking population into account over percentage. 

Terms Examined:

Obama

Barack Obama

Romney

Mitt Romney

Ron Paul

All terms were examined on two time tables: 2004-present, and 2012 only (researched on a national level, as there isn’t enough search volume to show trends per state yet in 2012.)

It may go without saying that attributing two keywords to Ron Paul, one being his surname, would yield too high a mix of irrelevant results and thus, his full name is used.

An additional Nationwide study for the First Ladies involved in the Presidential election of 2012 (Michelle Obama, Ann Romney, and Carol Wells) is included at the bottom as a bonus.

Obama

The top 5 states searching for this term are Washington DC, Maryland, New York, Illinois, and Georgia. The interesting point here is the interest from Illinois, where Obama was a state senator from 1997-2004.

The 3^rd top search is for the First Lady, Michelle Obama. What does this say about search? Perhaps it’s not a commentary to the nature of search or search behaviors, but is more of a representation of the importance and/or curiosity about the First Lady.

Liberal State Trends:

All liberal states were interested in Obama’s birth certificate, health care, Michelle Obama, as well as multimedia such as speeches and videos. Two liberal states in particular are searching for information about Obama’s approval rating: Massachusetts and New York. All states except for Washington seemed interested in geographical information concerning Obama, which is assumed to be users hoping to find speaking tour dates close to them.

What may be the most interesting fact here is the lack of interest regarding some subjects, some of which may present themselves in conservative trends.

Conservative State Trends:

All conservative states are searching for Michelle Obama, information about Obama’s birth certificate, health care, and Obama speeches. One particularly interesting Breakout search in this group was regarding religion: “obama muslim” is the #10 most rising search for “Obama” in Alabama.

Noteworthy National Breakout Search Term:

“Obama birth certificate” ranks #4 for national interest over time. Right above this at #3 is “Obama approval”, and below it, two keywords rank for the same issue: “obama care” and “obama health care”. If these two terms were combined, they could forseeably be the top breakout search term.

Swing State Trends:

How many swing states are among top searchers for this term nationally? 3 (North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania)

Swing states are requesting generally the same information, although an interesting search happening in Virginia is “inauguration”, as well as “obama inauguration”. The first page of SERPs for “obama inauguration” yields information pertaining to the 2009 inaugural address.

Every single swing state had breakout searches relating to Obama’s birth certificate, which is consistent with both conservative and liberal states. Nationally, the term “obama birth certificate” had two major peaks: once during the 2008 election season, and again in April/May of 2011.

One can speculate that the second peak may have largely been due to Donald Trump’s brief presidential bid, whose political narrative consisted of major doubts as to the credulity of President Obama’s birth certificate. In fact, the Breakout terms for “obama birth certificate” in 2011 were “donald trump obama”, “trump birth certificate”, and “trump obama”, which confirms Trump as the reason for the spike in searches in 2011. The most interested state in this topic is Hawaii, interestingly enough.

2012 only:

The #1 top searching state is the District of Columbia (which is technically not a state, of course).

Interesting Queries:

Obama Al Green

Obama sings

Obama singing

These queries are the top three Breakout searches for “Obama” and are in reference to viral video mash-ups of Obama speeches, remixed into pop songs, which came out in January of 2012. Also of note is “Obama supreme court” which has risen 450% in search popularity.

Barack Obama

The top 3 states searching this term most frequently are District of Columbia, Illinois, and Mississippi, which is interesting in and of itself. The Gallop poll which informed the initial Most Liberal/Most Conservative lists gave DC as the Most Liberal, and Mississippi as the most conservative. This shows that both regions, despite party affiliation, actively seek information about the current President.

Noteworthy National Breakout Search Term:

Two rising searches are “obama quotes” and “barack obama quotes”, a departure from breakouts for just the surname.

Liberal State Trends

“Michelle Obama” ranks very low on interest in liberal states, it would appear, as her name appears to rank low on rising searches, and only for New York, Oregon, and Washington. The people of Massachusetts are looking for the President’s specific Wikipedia entry increasingly. Residents of Oregon and Washington are also getting specific, using his full name, “Barack Hussein Obama” in searches.

Conservative State Trends

All states are interested in biographical information and speeches; all but one state (Arkansas) are searching for Michelle Obama. Louisiana and South Carolina are both keen on the birth certificate issue. Alabama and South Carolina are using the full name “Barack Hussein Obama”.

The people of Arkansas hardly have any trends for “Barack Obama”, which perhaps may be due to the familiarity of a president during a presidential term, although that theory is not reflected in liberal states.

Swing State Trends:

How many swing states are among top searchers for this term nationally? 2 (Pennsylvania and Ohio)

Instead of using Google Images, residents of swing states are searching for “barack obama pictures”. On a national level, many people want to see family photos of the Obamas.

The SERP for “barack obama pictures” is mostly comprised of galleries and online newspaper sections reserved for the President. What does this say about search? Expanding this one keyword to a national search, and you will find that the Southeast is more interested in pictures of the President more than any other region. Consistent with the rest of Obama related searches, the trend peaked in 2008 and sharply departed in 2009.

Closing notes: Liberal states refer to Obama’s Health Care Plan using the words “health care”; conservative states use “Obama care” instead. Nuance in language is particularly interesting regarding the culture built around respective parties.

2012 Only:

Inconsistent with the rest of this report, Mississippi is the #1 top searching state for “Barack Obama”. Three swing states among the top tens searching states are Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio.

Interesting Queries:

Barack Obama singing (NY only)

Barack Obama sings

Twitter Barack Obama

BarackObama.com

Barack Obama dog

Barack Obama Bracket

It seems people are still reaching out to Obama’s social media campaigning efforts, are interested in his family dog, and his NCAA Tournament (March Madness) Bracket.

Romney

States searching the most for “Romney” are Utah, West Virginia, Idaho, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Two things stick out here: Utah has the largest population of Mormons (with Idaho, interestingly, in second place for the American Mormon population) which is Romney’s religion. Despite the fact that they share Mormonism in common, Utahns are still researching the presidential candidate. The other interesting point is Massachusetts: not only is Massachusetts a liberal-leaning state, Romney served as 70^th governor from 2003-2007.

Noteworthy National Breakout Search Term:

“Romney dog” is the #5 Breakout term nationwide, assumably regarding the controversial story from the politician’s past.

Liberal State Trends

NY particularly interested in the term “Romney dog” with a couple of breakout terms popping up; just as many liberal states are searching for George Romney. Washington is searching for information about his Mormonism. Oregon has only generic terms and a very low search volume. No one is searching for “Ann Romney” or “George Romney”.

In Massachusetts, “Governor Romney” is a common associated search term, presumably with its peak between 2004-07, during his governorship. The Insights graph for this is certainly an interesting one:

As you can see, the majority of interest in Romney has already been searched for, back in 2004, in the state of Massachusetts.

Conservative State Trends

While searches for Romney are on the rise at this time, there are not enough searches in conservative states to yield top trends yet, with South Carolina and Alabama being the exceptions. None are interested in his Mormon religion, nor is anyone searching for “Romney dog”. Humorously, one of the top searches in Louisiana is for “Romney Pilates”, an exercise franchise.

Swing State Trends

How many swing states are among top 10 searchers? 1 (Iowa)

Florida has three searches trending regarding to geographic locations, assumably to find speaking dates in Florida. In fact, most swing states seem interested in Romney’s speaking engagements nearby, except for North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Only Pennsylvania is searching for information about the dog issue, and the only state searching for information about his Mormonism is Colorado. Everyone but Iowa and Nevada are searching for “Ann Romney”.

2012 only:

The top searching state in 2012 is Utah. Only 1 swing state is among the top 10 searchers for Romney this year.

Two top searches are for Ann Romney and three are about Romney’s dog incident.

Interesting Queries:

Romney dog roof

romney tax

Mitt Romney

The top five states showing regional interest in the term “Mitt Romney” are Utah, Idaho, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Iowa.

The #10 nationwide top search is “mitt romney mormon”.

Noteworthy National Breakout Search Term: 

“Mitt Romney dog” is the only non-generic breakout search term on a National level for “Mitt Romney”.

Liberal State Trends

Ann & George Romney are removed from trends entirely here. Massachusetts is particularly interested in learning about the dog issue; only Massachusetts and Washington are looking for geographical (speaking dates) information. There seems to be a trend with the Northern states (MA, NJ, and NY) in adding “wiki” to a search term, especially in this case, that is unseen in other full name searches (Barack Obama, Ron Paul).

Conservative State Trends

This is perhaps the most befuddling part of the case study. Hardly anyone in the most conservative states are searching for Mitt Romney; in Louisiana, less than 800 people have searched for this term (according to Insight). In Mississippi and Arkansas, “Mitt Romney” is completely off the radar for Google Insights due to such low search volume; the only data provided of note is that searches for “Mitt Romney” have been erratic since January of 2011, and have plunged during the summer months of 2012.

What does this say about search? The low search volume here may be partially due to people simply using surnames more often; however, searches for “Romney” were noticeably lower as well. More notes on this are listed in the Takeaways, at the bottom of the post.

Swing State Trends

How many swing states are among top 10 nationwide searchers? 2 (Iowa and Nevada)

According to Insight, fewer than 200 people have searched for “Mitt Romney” since Spring of 2012 in Iowa, which is surprising, if it’s true. Around 400 for Nevada, for the same time period. Wisconsin has a keen interest in the dog issue – in fact, most swing states do, or at least as many as are searching for “bio” information, which is a big chunk – but this is the only non-generic search term pertaining to Romney to be searched in Wisconsin. Most swing states are looking for speaking information near to them, except, once again, North Carolina.

The only swing states that appear interested in Romney’s faith per “Mitt Romney” are Colorado and Pennsylvaia.

2012 alone:

#1 Searching State: Utah

Among the top ten searchers for 2012 alone, there are no swing states.

The #1 Breakout for this term is “Mitt Romney Mexican”, all coming from California between January 8-14. This is incredibly interesting in this particular election because of Romney’s father, George Romney, who was born in a Mormon colony in Mexico. George Romney ran for President in 1968 despite his birth in a foreign country, which draws somewhat similar parallels to Obama’s birth certificate debate, while not identical issues. The mystery: why did these searches only come from California?

Other breakout terms seem to seek information about Mitt Romney on a personal level: “mitt romney sons”, “mitt romney children”, and “real mitt romney”.

Ron Paul

Search peaks over time for Ron Paul have happened twice, noticeably: once in January of 2008 and again in January of 2012, which are consistent with his presidential candidacy bids.

How many swing states are among top 10 nationwide searchers? 2 (Iowa and Florida)

It seems Iowa has more interest in the Republican candidates. Iowa shows up as being in the top 10 for all three Republican terms researched here (“Romney”, “Mitt Romney”, and “Ron Paul”), and are therefore noticeably absent from searches about Obama. Nevada has shown up in 2 out of 3.

Noteworthy National Breakout Terms: “ron paul poll” and “ron paul polls” both show up as Breakout terms, as well as Top searches.

Liberal State Trends:

It seems Massachusetts may be confusing Ron Paul with Pope John Paul II, as “John Paul” is the first breakout term for the state coinciding with Ron Paul. It’s very likely that this is not a user problem, but rather an inevitability with such a common name as ‘Paul’.

Oregon is particularly enthusiastic about Ron Paul speaking engagements, as it has 4 trending searches that are geographically specific to Oregon. New York also has 4 trending searches, alll of which are related to polls. All liberal states are searching for “debates”.

Conservative State Trends:

Conservative state trends are consistent with “Mitt Romney” in that there aren’t enough searches happening to qualify anything non-generic as trending for most of the conservative states. However, Louisiana seems to be the most inquisitive, as it has trends for geographic, debate, and poll information. Alabama and South Carolina are the runners up here, but barely.

Swing State Trends:

All swing states, except for Nevada, seem interested in Ron Paul: they all are searching for poll and debate information. Most swing states are searching for geographical info. Iowa, unlike any other swing state, had search trends with the word “caucus” in it. Virginia has two trending searches for “Ron Paul Party” – is this because Virginians were not certain as to which political party Ron Paul is affiliated with?

What’s more interesting than searcher behavior, in this case, is search engine behavior. In Wisconsin, a state congressman named “Paul Ryan” got mixed into things; in Florida, “105.9” showed up. Again, another inevitable search engine hiccup.

North Carolina seems not to search for geo-related information whatsoever, for any candidate.

2012 only:

#1 Searching State: New Hampshire.

Nationwide breakout searches show that 4 out of 10 breakout searches are geographically specific: aside from “maine ron paul”, which ranks #2 in trending searches, the other three geographically specific terms are all from swing states: “ron paul nevada”, “iowa caucus” and “ron paul florida”. This is a starkly contrasted trend to “Mitt Romney” in 2012, in which there are no swing states among the top ten searchers in 2012 alone.

Totals of 2012

As you can see below, more than half of the searches this year involving the proper names of these three candidates are searches for “Obama”. As you can more clearly see here, far more searchers are using surnames only. Four swing states are in the top ten for all searches: Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio.

First Ladies of 2012

Out of curiosity, research was conducted for “Michelle Obama”, “Ann Romney” and “Carol Wells”. Searches for Carol Wells were too infrequent to show any hardy results. As for the other two terms, the results are fascinating.

Search volume is lower, as to be expected. Yet, you’ll notice the 4th through 7th top searching states are four out of five of the most conservative states: Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Even if the search volume is too low, they’re generally the most interested states in the First Lady & potential first ladies. This is consistent with the Southeast’s general interest in the personal life of a politician, as stated in the research provided for “Barack Obama”.

If you search for “Michelle Obama” and “Ann Romney” individually, you’ll find essentially the same top 10 states, and associated queries vary from “Michelle Obama letterman”, “Michelle Obama disbarred”, “Michelle Obama flag”, and et cetera.

In a sharp contrast, searches for “Ann Romney” are overwhelmingly coming from Utah. Nationally, a lot of curiosity revolves around her equestrian lawsuit issue with associated keywords like “ann romney dressage”, “dressage”, and “ann romney horse”.

Takeaways

Conservative Research Behavior Speculations:
Why do conservative states have such a lower search volume for all keywords? Possible explanations might be:

a) Conservative states do less research for a candidate

b) Conservative states are conducting research elsewhere

c) Conservative states have less political interest

d) Conservative states may vote straight ticket more often, so candidate information is not as important.

E) Conservative states are compelled to research candidates closer to voting day

The most noticeable finding regarding Republican candidate Ron Paul is the decline in search popularity; it was also found that Ron Paul had more irrelevant results over time, which, as has been noted, is more of a search engine behavior than a search user behavior.

The search volume for each term seems to increase in places in which voters and searchers identify with the candidate. Illinois is a top searcher for “Obama”; Massachusetts and Utah (specifically the Salt Lake City metro region) for “Romney”; “Ron Paul”, who served in the House of Representative for Texas’ 22nd District (south of Houston) seems to be the exception to this rule, but only somewhat: Texas is the #6 top searching state for 2004-present, but in 2012, doesn’t appear in the top 10 at all.

Major Issue Findings: Barack Obama’s major trending issue in search engines, over time, regards his birth certificate. Mitt Romney’s major issue regards his dog incident. Both of these issues deserved their own research:

“Obama birth certificate” : Arizona – by far – is the top searcher in 2012, which aligns with their tough stance on immigration and natural citizenship. Four swing states are searching for this term this year: Nevada, Colorado, Florida, and North Carolina. Associated terms are “Arpaio” and “obama approval rating”. This term seems to be dissipating, but gradually, with decreasing peaks occurring in the middle of each month since February. Two conservative states, Louisiana and Alabama, are searching for this. Noticeably absent are liberal states.

“Romney dog” : This term, oddly enough, also has its peak in the middle of each month. Is this due to scheduled updates to Insight? Massachusetts is the top searcher for “Romney dog” in 2012. Three swing states are searching for this: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia. Liberal states are searching for this term moreso than conservative states. Associated terms are “seamus romney dog” and “romney dog video”.

Following up on projections:

• Due to familiarity with the current President, fewer generic searches are projected to be trending for “Barack Obama” and “Obama”. FALSE.
• Correlative to this, public interest in “Romney”, “Mitt Romney” and “Ron Paul” are projected to trend at higher rates. FALSE.
• Non-generic searches will show high interest in health care, particularly relating to the recent Health Care Reform Plan from the Obama administration, as well as Romney’s Health Care Initiatives in Massachusetts. SOMEWHAT – queries relating to Obama did yield these results, although split between “Obamacare” and “Obama Health Care”; Romney had no top searches regarding his Massachusetts Health Reform Law.