Jan Gordon: "Here's what caught my attention:
Axel: As long as people search for a product not knowing their name or a technology, not knowing its source or a solution not knowing who is a potential supplier SEO is an important part of the marketing mix...
However, this is slowly and steadily changing.
Today 60 – 80% of the so called educated purchase decision is based on recommendations by trusted individuals or groups that have no or no significant interest in the sale but helpful and experienced people using or knowing the product or service in need.
And the number of recommendation based purchases is steadily growing. I'm sure it will hit the 80 – 90% range in the next 5 to 10 years.
Now – what does that mean to SEO?
Why should a business invest in search engine optimization if most of the purchase decisions are based on recommendations?
Wouldn't it be smarter to invest into the "recommendation chain" instead in SEO?
Wouldn't it be more effective and successful to make sure people recommend a product than hoping to come up higher in the list of search results?"
Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Content Curation, Social Business and Beyond"
Read the full article: http://bit.ly/AxRrEr
Via janlgordon, k3hamilton, juandoming
On another note: I would humbly suggest to consider posting shorter stories, especially when you are also pointing to the original, as what I am looking for from you, is not a rehash of what's in the article - outside of a 1-3 para excerpt - but the reasons why you are recommending it. You are already doing both, but it is overwhelming for me. Too much stuff, and I haven't even seen the original yet.
I would also gently mute some of the visual noise you create by heavily formatting with asterisks, bolds and big font sizes. In my case that doesn't help much. It actually hinders my ability to rapidly scan and check whether you have something good there.
I suggest to limit greatly the formatting options you use and to highlight only what is really relevant, because when too many things are highlighted, bolded, asterisked, none has any more an effect on me. It's like a crowd screaming: who do you help? :-)