As social media continues to grow, it’s taking an increasing toll on your SEO efforts. The days of bloggers happily linking to relevant or interesting content are quickly disappearing, replaced instead by a snippet of text (lately, in 140 character increments) and a shortened, nofollowed link that’s all but worthless from a search engine optimization perspective.

But is it really the rise of social media, as some “so-called” SEO experts claim, that’s making it tougher to build quality links that corrolate to organic ranking, or is it something else?

The truth is, it’s a bit of both. Most social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter, use a link shortening service and/or add the nofollow attribute to external links. This negates most, if not all of the potential SEO benefits of that link. But most people are using social media poorly anyway – you should be using it to establish and nurture relationships, not to blast your message to as many people as possible. Bloggers are still blogging, and while they may be posting less, they are still linking out from their posts. If you’ve used social media properly by building relationships, which takes time,  quite often you’ll find that these people mention you and link to your content without so much as a nudge from you. And if they don’t, it’s easy to ask them to help you get the word out if you’ve already established a relationship with them.

Social media may have changed some of the dynamics of SEO lately, but it certainly isn’t killing it. Search engine optimization always has and always will evolve, it’s up to you to adjust your strategies or become extinct.

Google now encourages trademark infringement, so long as you’re paying them.

Starting June 4, marketers in about 200 countries will be allowed to purchase rival trademarks as keywords to trigger display of “sponsored search” ads on Google. Honda, for instance, could bid to have one of its ads displayed when a consumer searches the term “Toyota.”

Maybe Google is feeling the financial crunch and needs to increase their revenue. Maybe they just felt like giving their lawyers some extra work. Whatever their motivations may be, you can be certain that they are going to create a lot of dissent among advertisers; especially those who have worked long and hard to build a successful brand. No doubt, the scavengers of the Internet marketing world will gleefully jump on this “opportunity” but I think it won’t be too long before the onslaught of lawsuits forces Google to change their minds.

Do you think this is fair/legal? Do you think it will affect your company?

You’ve come up with a great and original business idea, invested in a professional website design, worked hard to develop quality content, and finally, emailed other website owners asking them to link to you. Then you waited. Then you waited some more.

You’ve followed the advice from all of the Internet marketing gurus step by step, but after several weeks, you still haven’t received a single link, or even a response. So where did you go wrong?

Most of the advice that you’ve been following probably omitted one key detail. Before you ask for something, even though you may be offering something in exchange, you need to establish rapport. When it comes to building links, you can establish rapport with a website owner by regularly commenting on their blog posts with well thought out responses, including links to their blog from yours where relevant or even helping to create exposure for their website through your own social media channels.

Once you’ve established rapport, getting a link will be easy, and if you nurture the relationship you can reap the rewards of your work for years to come.

It’s a statement that we hear often, but does it carry any weight? If you could rank for the top keyword phrase in your industry, what would it mean to your business? Chances are, not much. If you were a real estate agent in Tampa, and tomorrow your website ranked #1 for the keyword phrase “Tampa real estate” it would probably have little impact on your business because a lot of the people looking for a real estate agent in Tampa will be looking for something you don’t handle. Perhaps they are looking for a commercial real estate agent and you only handle residential. They could be looking for a home in an area that isn’t geographically convenient for you to server (Tampa is a big place). Maybe they are looking for the cheapest agent out there, but you focus on providing more service than other agents. The possibilities are endless, but you get the idea.

Instead of focusing your time and energy on top ranking for a particular phrase, you should focus on building a defensible website with a loyal group of returning visitors. These are the people that will refer potential clients to you. Build a library or resources that people can direct others to. Develop free and useful tools that others in your industry can use. Give relevant but non-competing companies a way and an incentive to help you reach your target market.

Some people rely heavily  on search engines, but if all the search engines disappeared tomorrow, how would you market your company? What marketing channels would be available to you if you couldn’t utilize SEO or SEM?

Obviously, search engines are never going to disappear, but small changes can drastically affect their impact on your marketing. If you rely completely on search engines, a shift in a search algorithm or an increase in the cost per click for your paid search campaign could devastate your company. Do you have a backup plan?

At the very least, you need to make sure that you are making the most from your existing website traffic, developing a way to continue to market to your visitors and giving them a reason to come back. Some quick and easy things you can do are to offer an email newsletter and RSS feed, launch a forum, or develop free tools available on your website.

The end result will be repeat visitors who you can continue to market to, and who will likely tell others about your website.