Here are the social and search changes you should watch this fall (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest – September 9, 2011)

It’s the start of another school year for many folks and when we put away our white pants and shoes for the winter. Well, I don’t have any white shoes, but you get the point. That means changes are afoot in the social, local, mobile space, too. Let’s see what’s on tap and what you should do about them:

• Many link-building campaigns focus on getting exact match anchor text. But SEOmoz’s Whiteboard Friday encourages you to look beyond exact match anchor text to help you rank for longer-tail queries along with the exact match text you’re looking for. That’s a change worth making, eh?
• Facebook is taking a cue from Google+ and introducing auto-grouping lists along with new filters in users’ news feeds. Why do you care? Because this is going to impact which stories your customers see and which friends they see them from. If you’re having success with WOM campaigns, hope that the folks making the big push for you continue to remain in the feeds that are working for you today.
• Search Engine Roundtable comments on Brett Tabke’s prediction of a major Google algorithm change by year-end. This one I wouldn’t worry about too much yet, other than to suggest you get ready for additional SEO efforts once you know how any change impacts you.
• Search Engine Land notes Bing has taken 4% share from Google. My reaction? Meh. As mentioned yesterday, what matters more is what’s happening with your business metrics. If you’re seeing a big uptick in traffic from Bing, great. If not? Don’t worry about it.
• Search Engine Land also has a great post asking whether your business is too reliant on social media. And much like a recent post in Directory Journal, they offer some suggestions on what to do about it.
• Finally, and along the same lines, I have suggested in that past that the brand Google wants to build is its own and the steps you should take to grow business without them. You can substitute Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn or GroupOn or the flavor of the month for Google in any of these cases and find yourself addressing the same challenges. So the biggest change to consider this fall is how to grow your brand without putting all your eggs in one basket.

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