Check out the top SEO, search engine and Internet marketing industry news stories from around the Web this week.

Study: Reviews and Images Drive Clicks in Mobile
According to a study conducted by Mediative, a Canadian digital agency, images and reviews are very important to people using the Google app on their mobile phones.

Google, Yahoo Form Group to Tackle Phishing
The top search engines, Google, Yahoo!, Bing and AOL recently joined forces to create DMARC.org, an organization to battle phishing.

Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers
Pinterest, the social bookmarketing website that lets users share photos they like online is driving a significant amount of traffic to retailers’ websites. The site’s popularity is quickly growing and the traffic Pinterest is sending out to other places on the web is steadily increasing.

Yahoo! Shutters 10 Mobile Apps
Yahoo! recently announced that 10 of its apps will no longer be supported on both the Android and iOS platforms.

Report: Twitter Will Begin Enhanced Profile Roll-Out in February
According to BusinessInsider, Twitter’s enhanced profile pages for brands may launch as early as February 1.

googleplusIf you haven’t already, it’s time to begin embracing the newest social network, Google+. With the release of Google’s “Search plus Your World,” information from Google+ is now being heavily incorporated into the search results. This means that now is the perfect time to create a brand page. Once you have it set up and you’re ready to start interacting with your Google+ followers, here are some tips to follow.

1. Use Circles to target your audience. One of the key features of Google+ is Circles. You can use Circles to separate your followers into categories then choose who to share with. This helps you share information only with people who will find it interesting, rather than just everyone who follows you on the social network. It will help keep people (i.e. customers, prospects and employees) more engaged so they will be less likely to un-follow you.

2. Create multimedia posts. Google+ is integrated with YouTube as well as Picasa, which means you can easily incorporate videos and photos into your posts. Using videos and photos in your posts makes them more interesting for your followers.

3. Use Google Hangouts to connect with customers. With Google Hangouts you can video chat with up to 10 people, allowing brands to start chats with customers. This could potentially allow brands to use Google+ for customer service purposes. Google is also currently testing it’s “On Air” feature which will allow brands to broadcast video messages out to their followers on Google+.

It’s extremely beneficial for your business to be found on Google+ with the incorporation of information from the social network in the Google search results. The more interesting you make your content; the more users will follow you. Then when users are searching for information related to your business on the most popular search engine, Google, they will be likely to come across your Google+ page.

Yesterday, the largest online strike in history took place in order to protest two bills before Congress. These bills are known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House.

PIPA and SOPA inspired approximately 75,000 websites to “blackout” or protest on January 18 in order to draw attention to the issues and encourage Congress to vote “no” on the bills. Google, Wikipedia, WordPress, Reddit and Tumblr were among the many websites that joined the fight against PIPA and SOPA.

“Members of Congress are trying to do the right thing by going after pirates and counterfeiters but SOPA and PIPA are the wrong way to do it,” said Google on their Take Action page.

Check out these SOPA/PIPA strike statistics from SOPAStrike.com to see exactly how large the outcry against the bills were yesterday. Voting begins on January 24, where do you stand on these issues?

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