Each week, we scour the web to uncover valuable articles and blog posts for our readers on the topics of inbound marketing, local optimization, social media, and much more.

Ah, another splendid week of inbound marketing! There’s been a huge ruckus going on, especially around social media. Twitter stock soars upon market debut, YouTube unveils a new commenting system to connect Google Plus to discussions, and Pinterest appoints a new Head of Content Partnerships. It’s been an exciting first week of November!

Let’s see what stories we’ve been reading this week:

Search Optimization

Selling SEO today has become blurry with the many channels through which sites acquire traffic. Nothing is guaranteed anymore. Pawel Grabowski of SERPS.com gives his perspective SEO sales for the customer.

Do you want to learn from industry leaders about inbound marketing, SEO, and other trends in the market? Listen to this in-depth interview published by Melissa of OMA with Brian Dean, SEO and founder of Backlinko.

Google Hummingbird forces you to think in different ways when using Google to find the best search results and targeting visitors with keyphrases. Steve Masters has the plan to sync your content strategy with the Google Hummingbird update.

Are you interested in the ins and outs of duplicate content? If so, you’ll need a respected guide to get the subject internalized to the highest degree! Dan Kern builds the ultimate guide to duplicate content for eCommerce SEO.

Social Optimization

Instagram released its first sponsored ad last week! Unbeknownst to the general population, that test yielded nice results and interesting insights. Thibaut Davoult records three key metrics in a blog post.

How much does social media affect shopping? It looks like social media definitely makes an impact in our daily lives, and we’re about to see how it influences online retailers! Katie Tandy writes up an excellent case study on this phenomenon.

Nearly one in ten adults read their news through Twitter. Furthermore, the younger generation embraces the Twitter stream to learn about the world rather than on the Facebook Newsfeed. Learn more statistics from Amy Mitchell and Emily Guskin in this article.

2013 is nearly over, and social media continues to surprise us! Is Google Plus finally on its way into the mainstream crowd? Will Twitter topple Facebook? Fredric Gonzalo offers the full story for next year predictions.

Local Optimization

It seems that everybody is ready to predict the turnout of 2014! If you want to know what 26 experts think of the future of local search, Joel Popoff’s article answers your thoughts.

Local SEO looks like a scary term, but in reality, it can be broken down into a few key parts that are necessary to rank locally. Jonathan Grindall lays out the basics so well that any beginner will instantly feel at home. Give this a read!

The local game has changed throughout the past year. Your local listings count will indeed improve your rankings, but recent findings show Google is starting to put more emphasis on customer reviews. Alex Duthie posts some impressive feedback in a noteworthy post.

Email Marketing

Email lists that convert are much more attainable than you think. However, you will need to be aware of your permission level to send emails to subscribers. Sinan provides the levels of inbox engagement in a full article.

Email is a whole other monster when content is involved. It is important to think about what type of content works best with your email list and to test multiple times for maximum effectiveness. Globomailer publishes solid advice on email marketing.

Businesses earn email signups using several methods, and each one has its pros and cons. Learn about the three forms of email capture with John Jantsch’s detailed post on maximizing our subscriber base.

Mobile Optimization

With mobile redirects, various site configuration, and several optimization platforms, can responsive design hurt your SEO? Well, not quite. In a response to Matt Cutts’s video, Orior Creative shares its own thoughts on the matter.

According to comScore, mobile penetration stands at 62% in the U.S. In other words 150 million people are using mobile devices, and that’s 150 million people who don’t come to your site through a highly populated channel. Duane Forrester issues an article for small business mobile marketing.

Mobile advertising expenditure is increasing on Google, and PPC continues to persist as an asset for local small businesses. Jessica Lee offers an assessment on the mobile explosion happening in the industry.

Content Marketing

Ideas for marketing can come from anywhere, but the very best ideas can be found in a few notable places. Ryan Hanley curates a list of the top marketing blogs, YouTube shows, and podcasts that you should be watching if you’re serious about marketing.

In the market for some profitable guest posting opportunities that will put cash in your pocket and  references to link back to regarding your blogging prowess? Mahesh Mohan gives content marketers a list of sites that will pay you to create content.

An abundance of ultimate guides exist on the web. Measureful gets to work in compiling the ultimate guide to ultimate guides on online marketing. There’s a lot to learn in this article so check it out!

We are proud advocates of content curation, but some people would beg to differ. Nonetheless, we believe there are valid arguments for the case of ethically curating content, and it is a huge benefit to both your business and the shared content. Pawan Deshpande points us in the right direction with four best practices of curation.

Conversion Optimization

For an accurate reading on how to improve your site’s usability, take into account the number of tools available at your disposal. In the age of the Internet, many new speed up the testing process. Paddy Moogan lists 18 tools for CRO.

Now you know you should be conducting and testing conversion rate optimization, but where should you begin? Scott Brinker releases best practices for CRO based on Chris Goward’s book, “You Should Test That!” Get ready for some smart insights.

Curious about what industry experts think about conversion optimization for eCommerce? Check out the Conversions Podcast with Francis Teo and Terry Lin from Build My Online Store. Give this podcast a listen!

Reputation Management

Service-based businesses live or die by online reputation. Hotels often have to strictly manage online reputation so that there are spotless customer reviews for their site. Anna Johnson creates a foundational article on the topic.

The list above includes some of the most interesting articles we caught in our streams this week. If you want to share any other great inbound marketing news, let us know below in the comments!