Mashable’s top news stories in the world of social networking, tech and business:

• Users Can Now Log in to MySpace With Facebook – MySpace users can now log in using Facebook – does this signal more future cooperation, possible takeover?
• Twitter introduces “People” tab to help find followers based on interests and relationships.
• U.S. Facebook traffic up 55% since last year – In October 2009 97.37 million unique U.S. visitors vs October 2010 151.13 million.
• Google hiring, hiring, hiring – has more than 2000 jobs listed – 6x more than in March.

Read more at Mashable big stories.

Matt Cutts recently suggested that SEOs “try to predict where Google is going in the future” rather than trying to “chase the algorithm”. Here are some Google predictions according to Peter Da Vanzo of SEOBook.com:

• Google will continue to dominate. Facebook is important, but not as a search engine.
• Blackhat sites will not bother Google unless they bother Google users.
• Google will continue to add services that maintain Google’s own position of prominence. This will probably mean the big boys with money will dominate even more than they do now.
• Go where your users are. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp. But Google clearly thinks Google is #1.
• Local is big and will get bigger. Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Local, Google Street View. Local on mobile. This is where a lot of the action will be over the next few years.
• SEO may change, but not that much, and not that quickly.

More on this topic:

SEOs Should Focus On Where Google Is Heading

Key Take Aways from Google’s Matt Cutts Talk at PubCon

Top 9 SEO Tips from Matt Cutts

Building links is an important part of promoting your website(s) and building an online presence. The more you get involved in different places around the web the more you will be noticed and the more traffic you will ultimately get. This is what you might call the “Prolific Principle”. The more prolific you are, the more your “presence” will grow.

This applies to content – publish as much fresh, original content as you can – and it applies to links pointing to your web properties. Be prolific – get out there – a lot.

In an article published a couple years ago on the HubSpot Blog Peter Caputa compares the link building process to passing through the “grades” you go through in high school. The article is called Did You Graduate From Link Building High School Yet?

Peter suggests to really master this process will take 4 years (like it does in high school), and that you have to move through the stages gradually. I think this is probably an exaggeration. If you get good advice you should be able to move through the stages quite a bit more quickly than that, and I believe the stages overlap more than he suggests. Nevertheless, the article makes some good suggestions. Here is my summary with comments of my own…

In Stage 1 (Grade 9) you should build links that don’t require anyone else’s help. These links include directory listings, many of which you can get for free, and references on social media sites where (among other things) you can create a profile – also for free.

I would add to this you should try to get at least one or two links from established sites that will result in your site being indexed as quickly as possible – perhaps from a friend or colleague. If you own a local business look for local business directories. Not only can you get listed there, but you can find other people you might exchange links with.

In Stage 2 (Grade 10) you should launch a business blog and begin adding content on a regular basis. Then start publishing articles on sites like Ezinearticles.com, GoArticles.com and others. You can use a submission service like SubmitYourArticle.com for distribution to a large number of sites.

As I outline in a previous post about article marketing this is a good way to get links (by adding them to your “resource box” on each article) and to build a reputation as an “expert” in your field. Of course this requires writing original, interesting articles. If you are stumped for original content you can just do reviews of other people’s articles or products (like this article) or you might consider using an article writing service like Textbrokers.

In Stage 3 (Grade 11) you should start networking with as many people as possible who share your interests. The object is to make yourself visible. This requires participation and “engagement”.

One way of doing this is to find a number of bloggers in your niche and start making meaningful comments on their posts. This is called blog commenting.

This will gradually introduce you to fellow bloggers and your link in each comment will attract a small amount of traffic from other commenters or readers. Once you gain enough confidence you can approach some of the bloggers you have met this way to do a guest post on their blog. That way you can leverage their readership to enhance your own visibility.

By this stage your blog should have a fair bit of valuable content so you should register it with as many blog networks as possible. MyBlogLog.com is a good place to start. This will help you meet other bloggers with similar interests and will give you some tools for tracking your traffic as it gradually grows.

You can also use other social media to gain visibility for specific blog posts. Digg and Stumbleupon are good places to start. You can also post references (and links) to specific blog posts on your Facebook wall, Twitter, and wherever else is appropriate.

Remember, the objective here is to build connections with key people and use the connections to build visibility. Content is the key. Build content on your blogs, in articles, and with guest posts.

In Stage 4 (Grade 12) you become a power blogger creating all kinds of content: articles, training courses, white papers, webinars and videos. All of these things attract readers, links, and subscribers. If you have done it correctly you should be an important, highly visible part of a vibrant community, and you should be at the top of the search engine results for your most important keywords.

Microsoft has just unveiled its new smartphone OS called Windows Phone 7. To see an overview of the new OS have a look at this video.

Windows Phone 7 has a completely different look from that of Apple, Adroid and Blackberry OS6. Whether it will sell in the marketplace will depend on a lot of factors, but you can expect Microsoft to put a lot of resources behind this launch. It will make the smartphone marketplace even more exciting and dynamic than it already is.

In this video from BusinessZone.co.uk Stephen Fry, British Twitter celebrity and dyed-in-the-wool iPhone lover praises Microsoft for re-tooling their smartphone approach and releasing a viable product that is “fun to use”.

You’ve probably heard that advertising on Facebook is a great way to reach a highly targeted market segment. And if you’ve tried it, chances are your experience has not been the greatest.

In this video called Facebook Advertising – Soup to Nuts Guide, Jeremy Shoemaker of shoemoney.com lays out an effective Facebook advertising strategy, and answers some of the more pressing questions you probably have about advertising with Facebook.

Almost everybody who knows anything about online marketing knows the importance of search engines – especially Google. In fact Google has become so dominant it is almost impossible to talk about the internet without immediately discussing the role of Google.

The process of systematically trying to get the search engines to drive (“free” not paid) traffic to your website(s) is called Search Engine Marketing. SEM, as it is often rererred to, involves different ways of trying to influence search engines – especially Google – to give you high ranking for searches done on your most important keywords.

For example, if your most important keywords are “Toledo Real Estate”, SEM involves trying to get high ranking in Google searches for the phrase “Toledo Real Estate”. This way people will click on your link in the Google search results and be taken to your blog or website.

Voila. Traffic.

The two most important techniques used in SEM are

• “Optimizing” your content for specific keywords. This is usually called SEO – short for search engine optimization. SEO involves choosing the most promising keywords, and then making sure those keywords show up in your web content in the most important places.

• Link building. Getting links from other sites pointing to your content is a good way to get the attention of the search engines. They consider inbound links as “votes” by other online bloggers and publishers that your content is worth looking at.

Generally speaking, the more your content focuses on your primary keywords, and the more inbound links you have, the better your website or blog will rank in the search engines.

But there are problems with SEM…

• It is indirect. You are relying on Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. to determine who is or is not a good candidate to visit your site or blog. This can be a very frustrating experience – especially when you are in a competitive market.

• It takes a lot of time and effort (usually) to influence the search engines. Typically you will have to wait at least three months to see any lasting results from SEM and SEO.
• It is unpredictable. We have seen clients rise to #1 for their search terms, and we have seen other clients drop off the map. It is hard to know if this is ever the direct result of a concerted SEM/SEO effort. You do your best to give Google and Bing what they want, but you just don’t know for sure it is going to work.

SEM is just one part of the marketing puzzle

SEM is a valuable long term strategy which every serious online marketer should adopt. But don’t count on immediate results. Eventually as your blog gains credibility you will consistently draw traffic from the search engines. But it can often be a very long and tedious process.

Even more important, SEM will only take you so far. It is what we call a “passive” method of marketing. It is like Social Networking in this regard. Social networking – being active in Facebook, for example – will introduce you to many new “friends” and prospects. But it will generally not do much direct selling for you.

For example, if you own a restaurant and you want to run a one week lunch special, SEM will be almost useless. To generate traffic to your offer page you will need other promotional techniques. These will be discussed in future posts.

Many online publishers are paranoid about “duplicate content” and go to great lengths to avoid the “penalty” they think Google levies against them if they happen to publish material published elsewhere on the web.

In a blog post from Google’s Webmaster Central Blog called Demystifying the “duplicate content penalty”, Google staffer Susan Moskwa tries to set the record straight. She says,

Let’s put this to bed once and for all, folks: There’s no such thing as a “duplicate content penalty.” At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that.

To make a long story short, Google is not opposed to you publishing content found elsewhere, as long as you are not trying to manipulate search results. They just won’t feature multiple instances of the same text in their search results.

For example, if you publish an original article word for word in three different places, they will not list all three of those instances in their search results. Usually just one. You might consider this a penalty (that content not being listed in search results), but it is not a penalty in the sense that such content will degrade your entire website. At least that is how interpret this explanation.

What Google wants to feature in their SERPS is content that adds something unique to searchers. In another Google blog post the staffer says “During our crawling and when serving search results, we try hard to index and show pages with distinct information.”

In a response to a comment on the same Google blog mentioned above, Susan Moskwa goes on to say about duplicate content, “…remember that, if you are providing content that a) you didn’t generate, and b) is available elsewhere, it’s important to add some sort of value of your own.”

So if you are republishing material and you care about search results, it is important to add some unique content to make it distinctive from other instances.

Just exactly how much “unique content” is an important and difficult question. In another response to a very insightful question about templated or syndicated content, Susan M says, “When in doubt, I’d do what makes most sense from a user perspective (what is most helpful to human visitors).”

Content for humans – This is an important point for people trying to do SEO to understand. When discussing these endless search engine optimization concerns it is easy to forget that your content should first and foremost be for the benefit of your actual readers – people, not computers.

In my estimation this means if you latch onto a piece of syndicated content that you feel will have value for your readers, you should go ahead and publish it.

For example, if you want to embed a Youtube video go ahead and do it if you think your readers will find it interesting.

It’s just that according to the above Google suggestions, the chances are that post will not show up in searches. Unless, of course, you add unique features to it: a unique title, a unique description, unique tags, or a unique review or commentary.

At the same time, that is not to say a bald “duplicated” video running on your site will detract from the search engine performance of the site as a whole. It just won’t help it very much.

Traffic from other sources – You should also remember when considering this issue that search engines are not the only source of valuable traffic.

In fact the traffic gained from Google or Bing may be quite difficult to get and spending all your efforts on conforming to their constraints may preclude you from getting traffic from other equally or more valuable sources.

Some of these sources, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, ActiveRain, other social networks, affiliate networks, JV networks and things such as email campaigns may be much easier to take advantage of and probably much quicker to implement than the long hard grind involved in getting search engine traffic.

Getting that type of traffic may in fact involve duplicating certain types of content in lots of different places – places where you drive eyeballs using methods other than search engines.

As always the first rule should be: “Give your readers something interesting and valuable.” Readers first, search engines second. Unfortunately many of us have been swept up in the search engine game and have our priorities turned around backwards.