Social media keeps rising in popularity. Just about everyone is on Twitter and Facebook these days. More people are jumping onto Tumblr to share even more content, so should we even bother will more full-blown blogs anymore? Internet entrepreneur Neil Patel certainly thinks so.

In a recent post on Search Engine Journal, the KISSmetrics founder outlines seven different reasons why blogging is still important in 2012. One of the biggest reasons is that a powerful blog will always serve as a great foundation for all your social media activities. Even if you are very active on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook, you still want somewhere that you can direct that interest and traffic.

A blog can do that. It's your home base and it's where you can drive that attention. By having that home base, you are better positioned to build your brand as an expert, build trust among your readers, and establish your legitimacy. Otherwise, you've just got pieces scattered all around the web with nothing to hold them together.

And let's not forget about the SEO benefits too. Sure you can have some eyes on your Twitter stream, but a consistently updated blog is a very good thing for search engine optimization. Google smiles upon dynamic content that is actually useful and having a blog keeps those spiders and bots coming back, better indexing your material and sending more organic traffic your way.

Blogging is still important and that's half the reason why we keep blogging here on Gseo. Do you keep a blog? Why or why not?

Even if you only have a very basic understanding of HTML and SEO, there are a few tags and attributes that are pretty common. Most people will know about rel=nofollow, for instance, as well as the alt and title tags that can be associated with images.

When you use these tags and attributes appropriately, you can gain some pretty significant SEO benefits. One attribute that many people neglect, though, is the rel=author tag that can be attached to the link in an author's byline. For instance, you'll see the author link for my name with every post on this blog.

A recent post by Jill Whalen talks specifically about this. She's saying that while the most powerful thing to do, from a Google SEO standpoint, is to link the author name (complete with the rel=author attribute) to a Google profile page, it can also be linked to an internal author page that, in turn, likes to the Google profile page.

She goes on to discuss five reasons why you should implement this code, one of which is that it helps your content stand out. Google can better understand that the various articles you have posted around the web are actually coming from the same author.

And that's exactly how Jill has taken advantage of the attribute. The search engine results page not only lists relevant content for the search term, but it also immediately brings up content that is written by the same author. That brings credibility and power to your name, which should hopefully also help from an SEO perspective.

Do you use the rel=author tag on your sites? Do you think it's worth the extra effort to go through your older archives to retroactively include the attribute?

It finally happened. After all that hard work with building backlinks, writing keyword articles, and optimizing the metadata, the traffic on one of your websites suddenly receives a sizable spike in organic search traffic from Google. You couldn't be happier. Then, just a few days later, the traffic plummets back to its old level, if not even below that.

What the heck happened?

Over on the Webmaster World forum (via SE Roundtable), user sftriman had exactly that experience. He got excited that he finally got "past the Panda slap," only to see his traffic drop "like a sack of stones." This phenomenon is known as the Google traffic tease, but why does it happen?

The easiest answer is that traffic is known to fluctuate wildly for all sorts of different reasons and it can be difficult to pin it down to just one. That said, it's quite possible that something odd here and there could give you that spike, only to take it away. For instance, if one of the images on your site suddenly ends up near the top of image search results for a popular keyword, you'll see that effect. As more images come in to usurp you, your image gets buried and the traffic goes away.

It's also quite possible that you hit upon a timely topic either knowingly or otherwise. Maybe you blogged about something and then it happens to be the topic of the Google doodle. People search for more information about the the topic and you get that traffic, which would then quickly disappear when the doodle is no longer there. It might have something to do with Google too, like bot activity that wasn't filtered properly. Or it could be Panda.

Have you experienced this with your sites? Were you able to figure out the source of the increased traffic and, more importantly, were you able to duplicate the results for another spike in organic traffic?

If you are reading this blog, then there is a good chance that you either provide SEO services for a living, actively work on SEO for your own web properties, or are otherwise interested in search engine optimization. And easily the biggest search engine we all target is Google.... but Google itself could be looking to slowly but surely devalue organic results.

Aaron Wall recently published a post on his SEO Book blog about this very topic. In effect, he says that all the shopping ads above the fold of a typical Google search results page are actually hurting the consumer by limiting their choices. To the average web user, these ads may look useful, because they're seemingly good for comparison shopping and getting pointed in the right direction. However, these results aren't exactly what they appear to be.

That's because, as you know, Google makes money with all of those ads and every time you click on one, that's money in the bank for the guys and gals in Mountain View, California. All the other links above the fold are to other Google pages that are similarly wrapped in more Google money-making monitor space. They want you to click on any of these and not on any of the organic results below the fold.

A great example of this is Google Flight Search. Consumers think Google is finding them the best possible deal on their next flight to Vegas, but according to Charlie Leocha of the Consumer Travel Alliance, "It is only going to a small select group of airlines and including them in Flight Search... Google and the airlines have a sweetheart deal with each other."

A scarier one? A recent ad that appeared on the Google SERP for the term "SEO" read: "Forget about SEO. To be visible in Google today, try AdWords."

How's that for a slap in the face?

SEO is long term. It's probably the simplest statement I can make to a potential client but the hardest for them to understand. We live in a ROI driven world where clients and management are breathing down our necks to produce results now! Unfortunately, you can't rush SEO and expect anything good to come of it. And outsourcing your SEO doesn't speed up the process either.

Here are 5 things you should do before you even consider outsourcing your SEO:

Wait at least a year from site's launch

A site's age and trust factor with the search engines are two incredibly important ranking factors, and a new site just doesnrsquo;t have them. It doesn't matter what kind of SEO campaign you build, your site's age and trust factor can't be rushed along. It's better to spend the first year getting your site to the best version of itself and focusing on the user-experience before you invest in any heavy off-site link building.

Understand the online market and your target audience

If your business is relatively new to the world on online marketing, you've got a lot of work ahead of you. One of the most important things to do is go back to Marketing 101 and define your target market. Your offline customers may not have the same characteristics as your ideal online consumer. How do they use the Internet? What social networking sites do they have profiles on? What are some of their favorite sites and blogs? In order to effectively reach your online audience, you have to know where to find them first.

You also need to define who your online competitors are. You may be the leader offline, but if you're late to the online space then you need to figure out where you stand in relation to the competition. What niche have they carved out for themselves and where do you see opportunity for your brand? SEO can help you outshine the competition, but you need to know who they are and what they are doing beforehand.

Learn the basics for yourself

Unfortunately, the SEO industry gets a bad reputation from the black hat SEO practitioners and scammers that are looking to take advantage of unsuspecting site owners. Don't let yourself be fooled! If you take the time to learn the basics of SEO for yourself, you'll have a better idea of what is and isn't white hat SEO, what the search engines are looking for and general best practice tips every site should follow. Since you know the basics of SEO, you'll be able to implement some of it on your own and allow time to take its course. That way, when you do decide to outsource your SEO the foundations for a great campaign are already in place. Your new SEO provider can just pick up where you left off and run with it!

Start blogging right away

Just like any other website, a blog needs time to age and develop a trust factor with the search engines. If you start blogging right away, when the time comes to outsource your SEO your'll have already built up a strong archive of valuable content, found your niche in the blogosphere, and courted loyal readers. This gives your SEO firm a lot more to work with; they can better leverage your blog for SEO and brand building.

Build your social profiles

Social media marketing might be even more long term than SEO. Don't expect to just launch a Facebook page and have 1,000 Fans overnight. It takes time to develop real relationships with current and potential customers and to develop a voice for your brand on social networking sites. Before you even think about outsourcing your SEO (or social media) build and develop your profiles. Focusing on gaining real, human fans/followers/friends (that means you donrsquo;t buy them from!) that will become brand ambassadors for your company.

About the Author

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing (http://www.brickmarketing.com), a Boston SEO company. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal (or SEO Journal) and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers.

Contact Nick Stamoulis as 781-999-1222 or nick@brickmarketing.com