Are you getting mediocre results from SEO? If yes, this article is for you. To achieve success with SEO, you must target the right key phrases and build links consistently. It is a continuous process - not a one-time effort.
With this in mind, let us take a look at the 4 deadly SEO mistakes that you must avoid at all cost. These are the mistakes that many optimizers made that prevent them from getting successful results:
1. You do not tag your pages with relevant key phrases. This is the most common mistake that many webmasters made. I believe you have seen websites that place only their company names in their Title tags. Title tags are words that appear on the top left hand side of your Internet browser. You must place keywords in your Title tag because search engines give a lot of weight to it. The title tag is like the Title of a book. It tells readers what the book is about. Likewise, the title tag tells search engines what your website is about. If you are trying to get higher rankings for a keyword but it is not present in your title tag, it is very hard for search engines to award you with high rankings. Therefore, make sure that your title tag describes the content of your page and place important keywords right at the front of it.
2. You do not have enough content or your content is outdated. SEO is more than just tagging your pages. You need to have enough content for search engines to read. To rank high on search engine listings, you must place keywords in your content. Moreover, if your website content is outdated, search engines will visit your site less often, and thus view it as less important. This also prevents your site from getting higher rankings in search engine listings.
3. You optimize the wrong keywords. If you are trying to optimize keywords that are too generic, it is very hard for you to achieve success from your SEO effort. This is because you will get yourself into a more competitive battlefield with other optimizers. So, spend some time to do your research and look for key phrases with lesser competition but relevant to your business. Remember that if you optimize keywords that are not relevant or too generic, even if you achieve high rankings for them, there will be no conversion.
4. You do not build link consistently. Link building is a process of getting more incoming links to your website. Quality inbound links will help your website to achieve higher rankings for competitive keywords. But link building is a continuous process. If you never do it consistently, you will not achieve good result from SEO. So, always build links consistently by using article marketing, blog commenting, directory submissions, and other common strategies that optimizers are using.
6 Ways to Get Your Site Indexed By Today
If your website is not indexed by search engines, it will not appear on the search engine listings. Therefore, when your website is live, the first thing you must do is to let the search engines notice your website and index it. In this article, let me share with you 5 ways to get your site indexed by today:
1. Submitting a XML sitemap to search engines. The xml sitemap includes links to every page of your website. It is a file that you can submit to search engines to get your pages indexed. By submitting your xml sitemap, you will notify the search engines about your website and index every page of it. You can upload your sitemap to Google by creating a free Google Webmaster account.
2. Create a HTML sitemap page on your website. A HTML sitemap is very different from a xml sitemap file. A HTML sitemap is a page on your website that is visible to your visitors. It will list down all the links to every page of your site. This allows visitors to navigate your site easily and allow search engine spiders to follow the links and discover all pages.
3. Place HTML text links on your website. Search engine spiders follow HTML text links to discover other pages of your website. Therefore, you must ensure that you use HTML text links for simple navigation menu so that search engine spiders can follow. Also, you should hyperlink keywords within your content and point them to other pages of your site. This is a good way to tell search engines what pages are important.
4. Directory submission. Submit your website URL to a list of SEO-friendly directories. DMOZ, Yahoo Directory and BOTW are important directories that you must submit your website to. It is, however, not all directory submission is free. Some may require you to pay a small fee for your website submission.
5. Article marketing. Write articles and place your website URL in the Author Resource Box. Then submit your articles to a few popular article directories. Once your articles are approved and published, your URL will be live online and this allows search engine spiders to follow the link to discover your website.
6. Using social websites. Social media sites are generally indexed regularly by search engines. So by placing your website URL on social sites, search engines spiders can discover your URL very quickly and index your new website.
1. Submitting a XML sitemap to search engines. The xml sitemap includes links to every page of your website. It is a file that you can submit to search engines to get your pages indexed. By submitting your xml sitemap, you will notify the search engines about your website and index every page of it. You can upload your sitemap to Google by creating a free Google Webmaster account.
2. Create a HTML sitemap page on your website. A HTML sitemap is very different from a xml sitemap file. A HTML sitemap is a page on your website that is visible to your visitors. It will list down all the links to every page of your site. This allows visitors to navigate your site easily and allow search engine spiders to follow the links and discover all pages.
3. Place HTML text links on your website. Search engine spiders follow HTML text links to discover other pages of your website. Therefore, you must ensure that you use HTML text links for simple navigation menu so that search engine spiders can follow. Also, you should hyperlink keywords within your content and point them to other pages of your site. This is a good way to tell search engines what pages are important.
4. Directory submission. Submit your website URL to a list of SEO-friendly directories. DMOZ, Yahoo Directory and BOTW are important directories that you must submit your website to. It is, however, not all directory submission is free. Some may require you to pay a small fee for your website submission.
5. Article marketing. Write articles and place your website URL in the Author Resource Box. Then submit your articles to a few popular article directories. Once your articles are approved and published, your URL will be live online and this allows search engine spiders to follow the link to discover your website.
6. Using social websites. Social media sites are generally indexed regularly by search engines. So by placing your website URL on social sites, search engines spiders can discover your URL very quickly and index your new website.
Website Audits
Sad, but true - if people cannot find your website, it doesn't matter how much money you've spent on website development - it becomes a useless asset and a waste of money.
What people often ignore is the fact that most websites can be FIXED - or optimised - effectively to start producing better search engine results. Instead, many business managers decide pay per click ads (sponsored links) are the way to go. But cost per click ads should be used to SUPPLEMENT your website's search engine strategy, not replace it.
Don't get me wrong - sponsored links are very important. But your website should be producing most of your traffic by itself - not your sponsored links. Actual figures vary, however roughly 60% to 80% of people click the organic results - NOT the sponsored, PPC or CPC links.
That is where a website audit becomes a very powerful and cost effective service. Auditing your website for problems that prevent it from achieving better search engine results can produce increased sales and profits, and reduce your monthly sponsored link expenditure dramatically.
At the very LEAST it will highlight potential problems or hazards in your website that may need attention either immediately or at a later date.
The wise move is to choose a company that can show it has a history of producing great results. Just don't be so sure you have to pay a monthly fee to keep your site at the top of the search engine results.
I've optimised websites that haven't been touched for well over a year and they STILL produce excellent results for the clients, and are STILL on page one for highly searched for and competitive key phrases.
A good website audit will look at your site as a whole and provide feedback on construction, navigability, coding validation, aesthetics, accessibility, etc., as well look into individual elements and suggest ways to improve your results. Also, be prepared to become involved by spending more time promoting your website through the social web.
The fact is, a lot of websites miss even the most basic search engine optimisation that allows their competitors to beat them every time. So, rather than look for an effective solution to "fix" the website, they simply take the "easy" way out and run pay per click campaigns, thus costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month.
But don't be under any illusions that a website audit will fix ALL your woes - the resulting report may mean you have to rethink your website strategy to move forward, or it may simply indicate you need to make some relatively minor changes that will see you shoot up in the search engine results.
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What people often ignore is the fact that most websites can be FIXED - or optimised - effectively to start producing better search engine results. Instead, many business managers decide pay per click ads (sponsored links) are the way to go. But cost per click ads should be used to SUPPLEMENT your website's search engine strategy, not replace it.
Don't get me wrong - sponsored links are very important. But your website should be producing most of your traffic by itself - not your sponsored links. Actual figures vary, however roughly 60% to 80% of people click the organic results - NOT the sponsored, PPC or CPC links.
That is where a website audit becomes a very powerful and cost effective service. Auditing your website for problems that prevent it from achieving better search engine results can produce increased sales and profits, and reduce your monthly sponsored link expenditure dramatically.
At the very LEAST it will highlight potential problems or hazards in your website that may need attention either immediately or at a later date.
The wise move is to choose a company that can show it has a history of producing great results. Just don't be so sure you have to pay a monthly fee to keep your site at the top of the search engine results.
I've optimised websites that haven't been touched for well over a year and they STILL produce excellent results for the clients, and are STILL on page one for highly searched for and competitive key phrases.
A good website audit will look at your site as a whole and provide feedback on construction, navigability, coding validation, aesthetics, accessibility, etc., as well look into individual elements and suggest ways to improve your results. Also, be prepared to become involved by spending more time promoting your website through the social web.
The fact is, a lot of websites miss even the most basic search engine optimisation that allows their competitors to beat them every time. So, rather than look for an effective solution to "fix" the website, they simply take the "easy" way out and run pay per click campaigns, thus costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month.
But don't be under any illusions that a website audit will fix ALL your woes - the resulting report may mean you have to rethink your website strategy to move forward, or it may simply indicate you need to make some relatively minor changes that will see you shoot up in the search engine results.
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How to increase your website traffic
Search engine optimization or pay per click option is adopted by various online website to increase their sales. You might also have your own site and might be not getting too many visitors on your website.
Then you need to give some touching finishes her and there. Let us begin the drill now.
* Content: It is very essential to make changes in the existing content. Add fresh ideas and make it more search engine friendly.
* Links: Attract more links to your site. With the help of a professional link builder try to link with ones sites that are offering similar products and services. Remember one cannot strive in isolation, so go in for link exchange program or affiliate marketing.
* Keywords: Keywords are like directional tool for our site. If visitor is misled, then he feels cheated and won't like to visit the store/ buy the products. Therefore, the keywords for a site should be carefully chosen and scattered evenly over the website.
* Design: Check for the design of the page. If your website is designed in flash then see that it has an HTML version for slower connection. Some sites have too many images, as the result they take time to download. So remove the unnecessary ones. If you are not good at web designing then take the help of a web designer who has the experience in web site design and web site development. May be you can sit with him and check for new design is user friendly and attracts the customers. If required add more pages and get the web site development done quickly. Here you need to check the navigational links as well. See that links when clicked open the right page.
* Advertise: Place advertisement of your site on web. By this, we not only mean PPC advertising campaign but also telling people about the products and services in discussions, forums, by sending emails, newsletter, etc.
* Site map: Build a site map for your site. These are like an index for books and are preferred by the search engines.
To get more tips on how to increase website traffic, visit www.thesoulwithin.com for interactive design company, now. They will tell you more trips and tricks to attract the customers online.
Then you need to give some touching finishes her and there. Let us begin the drill now.
* Content: It is very essential to make changes in the existing content. Add fresh ideas and make it more search engine friendly.
* Links: Attract more links to your site. With the help of a professional link builder try to link with ones sites that are offering similar products and services. Remember one cannot strive in isolation, so go in for link exchange program or affiliate marketing.
* Keywords: Keywords are like directional tool for our site. If visitor is misled, then he feels cheated and won't like to visit the store/ buy the products. Therefore, the keywords for a site should be carefully chosen and scattered evenly over the website.
* Design: Check for the design of the page. If your website is designed in flash then see that it has an HTML version for slower connection. Some sites have too many images, as the result they take time to download. So remove the unnecessary ones. If you are not good at web designing then take the help of a web designer who has the experience in web site design and web site development. May be you can sit with him and check for new design is user friendly and attracts the customers. If required add more pages and get the web site development done quickly. Here you need to check the navigational links as well. See that links when clicked open the right page.
* Advertise: Place advertisement of your site on web. By this, we not only mean PPC advertising campaign but also telling people about the products and services in discussions, forums, by sending emails, newsletter, etc.
* Site map: Build a site map for your site. These are like an index for books and are preferred by the search engines.
To get more tips on how to increase website traffic, visit www.thesoulwithin.com for interactive design company, now. They will tell you more trips and tricks to attract the customers online.
Gain High PageRank Easily
Achieve Good Page Rank by Purchasing High PR Text Links
Before you read this article ensure that you know what is a PR? To know about it please refer to this article.
Getting PR2 or high PR website links to your site is the fastest and easier way to get extremely increasing web site traffic to your site and to top the search engines. It is said that a one-way high Page rank link will grant your web site a Pagerank of minimum two points below that of the linking website. It means that a link from a PR10 site could help you to gain PR8 for your web site.
Why is it Important to Buy High Page Rank Text Links? (Aka PR) It is almost impossible to get a link from an extremely traffic web site, if your site cannot compete with the site you wish to exchange links with. Google considers a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."
Receiving a link from an "'important" web site would help to boost your web page popularity, in resulting higher Search Engine Ranking. As an added bonus you would also receive hundreds of visitors from such a link.
Such links are available for sale, they are not cheap, but some savvy SEO's are weaving "Pay for PR Links" into their overall strategy.
How much should be the term of Buying High PR Text Links? Buying high PR links should be done for about 6 months. Because of the nice PR boost your web site will get from such a link, you will find that it will be much easier for you to find other high quality (and high PR) reciprocal link partners at no cost to you. After getting these high quality links you can move away from the pay-for-pagerank links, without losing your PR.
PageRank Levels * PR5 - You should be able to reach this level on your own. * PR6 - Good, it takes hard work to reach this PR level. * PR7 - Very good, but Hard to reach. Worth buying these links. * PR8 - Very hard and long process to get to this level. * PR9 - Nearly impossible. It worth a lot of money. Not found very often. * PR10 - Google.com and a couple of other sites only get this high Page rank.
Before you read this article ensure that you know what is a PR? To know about it please refer to this article.
Getting PR2 or high PR website links to your site is the fastest and easier way to get extremely increasing web site traffic to your site and to top the search engines. It is said that a one-way high Page rank link will grant your web site a Pagerank of minimum two points below that of the linking website. It means that a link from a PR10 site could help you to gain PR8 for your web site.
Why is it Important to Buy High Page Rank Text Links? (Aka PR) It is almost impossible to get a link from an extremely traffic web site, if your site cannot compete with the site you wish to exchange links with. Google considers a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."
Receiving a link from an "'important" web site would help to boost your web page popularity, in resulting higher Search Engine Ranking. As an added bonus you would also receive hundreds of visitors from such a link.
Such links are available for sale, they are not cheap, but some savvy SEO's are weaving "Pay for PR Links" into their overall strategy.
How much should be the term of Buying High PR Text Links? Buying high PR links should be done for about 6 months. Because of the nice PR boost your web site will get from such a link, you will find that it will be much easier for you to find other high quality (and high PR) reciprocal link partners at no cost to you. After getting these high quality links you can move away from the pay-for-pagerank links, without losing your PR.
PageRank Levels * PR5 - You should be able to reach this level on your own. * PR6 - Good, it takes hard work to reach this PR level. * PR7 - Very good, but Hard to reach. Worth buying these links. * PR8 - Very hard and long process to get to this level. * PR9 - Nearly impossible. It worth a lot of money. Not found very often. * PR10 - Google.com and a couple of other sites only get this high Page rank.
What Is SEO And Link Building Services
SEO known as search engine optimization is one of the well known marketing tools that enable the website to get listed at major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Msn. SEO involves link building, link exchange, and other methods which could lead to a higher rank at major search engines.
The process of increasing link popularity of a page by submitting your site on other domains is known as Link Building. When looking to increase the page rank of a website, using SEO link building services is one of the best options available. The amount of knowledge going into search engine optimization is quite vast and fast, and very few individuals can keep up with the constant changes. Using a link building service can help in getting all the latest advances in SEO, and also a higher page rank and more site traffic.
Link building ameliorates the popularity of your website in search engines. It means number of sites pointing towards your site. Search engines not only look at the numbers of sites pointing but also the quality of the sites. It is one of the most important factors for a website to be successful in the online world.
Also you can exchange links with similar websites. I mean the websites which offer either same services or related services as yours. Take for instance, if you have education based website, it will be astute to develop back-links from websites dealing in schools, universities, colleges, and learning institutions and related content.
Another essential step is that your website should have quality content in it. Often people think that link building services have no concern with content. Let me tell you this is absolutely wrong. Content is considered the king of the website. So make sure you have quality content. Try and develop links with the websites carrying engrossing content. I mean look for the website that not just has good content but also has optimum usage of keywords and key phrases in the content.
There are number of companies out there offering link building services. But Mosaic is the one to opt for. It outshines everyone. The links offered by them are the best and quality links, which boost your business and page rank. Following the correct path, Mosaic tries to deliver what exactly you are looking for. Thus you always stay ahead in the business. If you wish to know more about link building services, link popularity services, you can find it online.
At the end, I would like to tell you, link building is a very effective way to promote your website. But you should also learn more about keyword density, web page content, and similar products before wasting too much time searching for relevant links.
The process of increasing link popularity of a page by submitting your site on other domains is known as Link Building. When looking to increase the page rank of a website, using SEO link building services is one of the best options available. The amount of knowledge going into search engine optimization is quite vast and fast, and very few individuals can keep up with the constant changes. Using a link building service can help in getting all the latest advances in SEO, and also a higher page rank and more site traffic.
Link building ameliorates the popularity of your website in search engines. It means number of sites pointing towards your site. Search engines not only look at the numbers of sites pointing but also the quality of the sites. It is one of the most important factors for a website to be successful in the online world.
Also you can exchange links with similar websites. I mean the websites which offer either same services or related services as yours. Take for instance, if you have education based website, it will be astute to develop back-links from websites dealing in schools, universities, colleges, and learning institutions and related content.
Another essential step is that your website should have quality content in it. Often people think that link building services have no concern with content. Let me tell you this is absolutely wrong. Content is considered the king of the website. So make sure you have quality content. Try and develop links with the websites carrying engrossing content. I mean look for the website that not just has good content but also has optimum usage of keywords and key phrases in the content.
There are number of companies out there offering link building services. But Mosaic is the one to opt for. It outshines everyone. The links offered by them are the best and quality links, which boost your business and page rank. Following the correct path, Mosaic tries to deliver what exactly you are looking for. Thus you always stay ahead in the business. If you wish to know more about link building services, link popularity services, you can find it online.
At the end, I would like to tell you, link building is a very effective way to promote your website. But you should also learn more about keyword density, web page content, and similar products before wasting too much time searching for relevant links.
Importance of Social Media and SEO for Public Relations
Facebook is approaching 700 million users and Google handles over 11 billion queries per month. World-wide there are over 5 billion mobile subscribers (9 out of 10 in the U.S.) and every two days there is more information created than between the dawn of civilization and 2003. The age of communications and digital relationships between brands, the media and consumers has changed faster and in ways few could have anticipated.
With an ever increasing universe of data and ways to connect, PR and communications professionals are in a compelling position to master the new rules for consumer information discovery, consumption and sharing. As participants and content creators savvy about the search and social web, PR professionals can directly impact online brand visibility, customer engagement and acquisition.
A big part of how Public Relations pros can show more value for their efforts is to understand how the intersection of search and social media provides a powerful means to reach and engage media and consumers that inspires interaction, sharing and meaningful business outcomes.
Some of the fundamentals online PR and communications practitioners should seek to understand in the world of Social Media and SEO include:
Stay on top of future trends in search, social media and content marketing for PR
Gain insight into how social and search strategy can amplify media and public relations outcomes
Understand how to develop search & social personas – think like your customer’s customer
Be able to conduct strategic and on-demand research for keywords and topics relevant to search and/or the social web
Know best practices of SEO for Blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and any other digital media produced for news distribution
High level of expertise with tools to improve quality, efficiency and scale
Call it convergence or consolidation, but no matter how you look at it, marketing and public relations expertise is unifying to bring brand messages and influence to the new search and social web. It’s a compelling thing for PR professionals to gain an understanding of how search and social media channels can improve reach and placements. It’s even more impressive to step into the shoes of their customer’s customer as a marketer would and really understand how news is discovered, consumed and shared.
With an ever increasing universe of data and ways to connect, PR and communications professionals are in a compelling position to master the new rules for consumer information discovery, consumption and sharing. As participants and content creators savvy about the search and social web, PR professionals can directly impact online brand visibility, customer engagement and acquisition.
A big part of how Public Relations pros can show more value for their efforts is to understand how the intersection of search and social media provides a powerful means to reach and engage media and consumers that inspires interaction, sharing and meaningful business outcomes.
Some of the fundamentals online PR and communications practitioners should seek to understand in the world of Social Media and SEO include:
Stay on top of future trends in search, social media and content marketing for PR
Gain insight into how social and search strategy can amplify media and public relations outcomes
Understand how to develop search & social personas – think like your customer’s customer
Be able to conduct strategic and on-demand research for keywords and topics relevant to search and/or the social web
Know best practices of SEO for Blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and any other digital media produced for news distribution
High level of expertise with tools to improve quality, efficiency and scale
Call it convergence or consolidation, but no matter how you look at it, marketing and public relations expertise is unifying to bring brand messages and influence to the new search and social web. It’s a compelling thing for PR professionals to gain an understanding of how search and social media channels can improve reach and placements. It’s even more impressive to step into the shoes of their customer’s customer as a marketer would and really understand how news is discovered, consumed and shared.
Search Engine Optimization Strategy
A well planned and well thought out search engine optimization strategy is key to running a successful search engine optimization campaign. When you are deciding what methods you want to use, you need to be sure the methods you use are tried, true, and tested. Search engine optimization strategy changes often. The biggest key to this change is based on the new rules search engines such as Google decide to change their search parameters and algorithms to. Many internet marketers often speculate about what things search engines are doing to change their policies, but in truth no one except for the search engines themselves actually know this information. This information is a trade secret and the secret is kept very tightly sealed.
There's one thing that has stayed consistently consistent (if that even makes sense). It is article marketing. Article marketing is the process of writing and submitting articles to article directories. The benefit for you and your website is high quality anchor texted backlinks. I'll talk more about this later. The benefit for the article directories is content. Article directories want good high quality content to fill their directories with. The more content they have, the more ad space they can sell. The benefit for search engines is also content. Search engines love textual content and therefore there's no better textual content like articles. The purpose of a search engine is to deliver the highest quality and most relevant content to the end user. If you are creating good high quality and relevant content in the form of articles, the search engines will index your content, rank it high in the search engines and give you backlink credit for it.
So now we are back to backlinks. If you are not familiar with backlinks, here's a brief lesson. There are two types of backlinks. You can have reciprocal links which are two-way links that link two websites together. For example, if you and another website both link back to each other, this is a reciprocal link. Search engines will give you credit for this as a backlink, but they don't particularly care for reciprocal links. Search engines much prefer one-way backlinks.
The additional benefit of article marketing is that when submitting your article to directories, the article directories allow you to place up to 3 anchor texted backlinks. If you are a smart marketer or at least have a semi-functioning brain stem, you would link back to your website with anchor texted keyword phrases for keywords you'd like to get ranked for in search engines.
This is what I do for my clients and my websites and it has proven to be very successful.
This article is only a snippet of information about search engine optimization strategy. There's much more to know about search engine optimization strategy and article marketing. If you want more information I suggest checking out the link to my site in my author bio box below. There are tons of videos proving that article marketing works as an effective search engine optimization strategy.
There's one thing that has stayed consistently consistent (if that even makes sense). It is article marketing. Article marketing is the process of writing and submitting articles to article directories. The benefit for you and your website is high quality anchor texted backlinks. I'll talk more about this later. The benefit for the article directories is content. Article directories want good high quality content to fill their directories with. The more content they have, the more ad space they can sell. The benefit for search engines is also content. Search engines love textual content and therefore there's no better textual content like articles. The purpose of a search engine is to deliver the highest quality and most relevant content to the end user. If you are creating good high quality and relevant content in the form of articles, the search engines will index your content, rank it high in the search engines and give you backlink credit for it.
So now we are back to backlinks. If you are not familiar with backlinks, here's a brief lesson. There are two types of backlinks. You can have reciprocal links which are two-way links that link two websites together. For example, if you and another website both link back to each other, this is a reciprocal link. Search engines will give you credit for this as a backlink, but they don't particularly care for reciprocal links. Search engines much prefer one-way backlinks.
The additional benefit of article marketing is that when submitting your article to directories, the article directories allow you to place up to 3 anchor texted backlinks. If you are a smart marketer or at least have a semi-functioning brain stem, you would link back to your website with anchor texted keyword phrases for keywords you'd like to get ranked for in search engines.
This is what I do for my clients and my websites and it has proven to be very successful.
This article is only a snippet of information about search engine optimization strategy. There's much more to know about search engine optimization strategy and article marketing. If you want more information I suggest checking out the link to my site in my author bio box below. There are tons of videos proving that article marketing works as an effective search engine optimization strategy.
7 Ways to Be a Great Social Media User
Want to become better at social media? If you’re new to social media marketing or you aren’t too sure you’re making the most of your social media usage, there are several things you can do to boost your social media profile and maximize your social media marketing efforts. Here are 7 ways you can build a more powerful social media presence and network while making the most of your social media marketing efforts.
1. Get social!
One of the most important aspects of being a great social media user is socializing! After all, that is what social media networks were made for. For example, if you are using Twitter, make it a point to get to know your followers and interact with them. It’s more valuable to have just a few dozen followers that you actually interact with on a regular basis versus having tons of followers that you haven’t uttered a word to.
If you use social voting sites, network with users by sharing their content with others and discussing their content in the comments section.
2. Spread your social media presence across various networks
If you want to build a stronger brand and network, consider using more than just one social media outlet. For example, if you use Twitter to build rapport with your followers, you can take your relationships to the next level by befriending them on Facebook or LinkedIn. On a social network like Facebook or LinkedIn, you can share photos, connections, and much more.
3. Contribute
Social voting sites like Digg survive and thrive because of user submissions. Rather than just supporting your friends’ content on social voting sites, make it a point to also contribute your own quality content so you can build up your account.
4. Be real
Be yourself, strive to get to know others, and the friends and followers will eventually come. While there are several reports out there about how you can get 10,000 Twitter followers instantly, what the optimum number of times is that you should submit articles to Digg each day, and so on, aim to be real instead of doing whatever is better statistically. People can spot a fake from miles away.
5. Manage your reputation
Reputation management applies more to business social media accounts than personal ones. Social media can be a highly effective way to get feedback from your customers, respond to complaints, and provide customer service. Comcast did this very successfully on Twitter by responding to all negative tweets about Comcast and providing solutions to the customers’ problems from the @comcastcares Twitter account.
6. Stay relevant
If you want to network with people in your niche and build your brand, it’s essential to share and promote relevant stories in your industry. Doing so will help you build beneficial business relationships, promote your own content, and network with people who share similar interests.
7. Dare to be different
Want to get the attention of a certain person or group of people? Don’t just vote for their content or retweet it. Dare to strike up interesting conversations, use humor, get snarky, or do anything else that would make your presence stand out. Ultimately, you should aim to let your real personality shine through rather than just copying what everyone else is doing.
1. Get social!
One of the most important aspects of being a great social media user is socializing! After all, that is what social media networks were made for. For example, if you are using Twitter, make it a point to get to know your followers and interact with them. It’s more valuable to have just a few dozen followers that you actually interact with on a regular basis versus having tons of followers that you haven’t uttered a word to.
If you use social voting sites, network with users by sharing their content with others and discussing their content in the comments section.
2. Spread your social media presence across various networks
If you want to build a stronger brand and network, consider using more than just one social media outlet. For example, if you use Twitter to build rapport with your followers, you can take your relationships to the next level by befriending them on Facebook or LinkedIn. On a social network like Facebook or LinkedIn, you can share photos, connections, and much more.
3. Contribute
Social voting sites like Digg survive and thrive because of user submissions. Rather than just supporting your friends’ content on social voting sites, make it a point to also contribute your own quality content so you can build up your account.
4. Be real
Be yourself, strive to get to know others, and the friends and followers will eventually come. While there are several reports out there about how you can get 10,000 Twitter followers instantly, what the optimum number of times is that you should submit articles to Digg each day, and so on, aim to be real instead of doing whatever is better statistically. People can spot a fake from miles away.
5. Manage your reputation
Reputation management applies more to business social media accounts than personal ones. Social media can be a highly effective way to get feedback from your customers, respond to complaints, and provide customer service. Comcast did this very successfully on Twitter by responding to all negative tweets about Comcast and providing solutions to the customers’ problems from the @comcastcares Twitter account.
6. Stay relevant
If you want to network with people in your niche and build your brand, it’s essential to share and promote relevant stories in your industry. Doing so will help you build beneficial business relationships, promote your own content, and network with people who share similar interests.
7. Dare to be different
Want to get the attention of a certain person or group of people? Don’t just vote for their content or retweet it. Dare to strike up interesting conversations, use humor, get snarky, or do anything else that would make your presence stand out. Ultimately, you should aim to let your real personality shine through rather than just copying what everyone else is doing.
Essential Tips for Purchasing SEO Services
So you’ve finally launched your own website. You have some great content up, and some people are visiting your site, but you searched Google and couldn’t find a trace of your website anywhere. In order to build your web presence and search engine visibility, it’s essential to invest in SEO, or search engine optimization.
Can I Do It Myself?
Yes, you can do SEO yourself if you are strapped for cash. But you have to realize that what you don’t invest in money, you will invest in time. One way you can learn the essentials of SEO is by signing up for an online training course or reading some e-books. There is also a lot of free information out there in the form of blogs and websites dedicated to spreading SEO knowledge.
The basic things you will have to do are ensure that your pages are crawlable and readable for search engines, target around 20 key terms in your website content, and build inbound links. You should also create a site map that points to each page of your website, and link all of your pages to the site map.
In order to do SEO yourself, you are going to have to learn about the technical aspects of SEO and web publishing. If you are willing to do this and you have the time to spare, then you can consider doing your own SEO. However, if you are strapped for time or simply do not have the desire to learn all that goes into SEO, your best bet is to hire an SEO professional, as long as you can afford it.
How to Hire an SEO Professional
Since there are no formal SEO industry certifications, you should not choose an SEO company based on their supposed qualifications. You should look at the results of their campaigns as an indicator of the quality of their services.
What to Expect from Professional SEO Services
What an SEO will do first is ensure that your site gets indexed by the search engines. They will adapt the inbound links, content, and design of your site to optimize it for the search engines.
SEO criteria are always in a state of flux so what worked a year ago may not work now. If you are trying to rank #1 for a highly competitive term, you can’t expect to hire an SEO and get those results overnight. For instance, search engines highly value links that have been built over a long period of time. However, it is obviously not possible for an SEO to get these types of links very fast.
Be Careful of Aggressive SEO Tactics
Some SEO companies are known to use aggressive optimization tactics, which can lead to your site getting banned from the search engines. In order to stay on the safe side, stick with the guidelines published by the search engines. Although aggressive techniques can often get results when the usual techniques fail, the consequences can be severe.
Most importantly, when hiring an SEO company, be wary of ranking guarantees. A #1 spot in the search engine results cannot be guaranteed. Make sure that whatever an SEO company guarantees in their contract with you can be tracked and measured.
Can I Do It Myself?
Yes, you can do SEO yourself if you are strapped for cash. But you have to realize that what you don’t invest in money, you will invest in time. One way you can learn the essentials of SEO is by signing up for an online training course or reading some e-books. There is also a lot of free information out there in the form of blogs and websites dedicated to spreading SEO knowledge.
The basic things you will have to do are ensure that your pages are crawlable and readable for search engines, target around 20 key terms in your website content, and build inbound links. You should also create a site map that points to each page of your website, and link all of your pages to the site map.
In order to do SEO yourself, you are going to have to learn about the technical aspects of SEO and web publishing. If you are willing to do this and you have the time to spare, then you can consider doing your own SEO. However, if you are strapped for time or simply do not have the desire to learn all that goes into SEO, your best bet is to hire an SEO professional, as long as you can afford it.
How to Hire an SEO Professional
Since there are no formal SEO industry certifications, you should not choose an SEO company based on their supposed qualifications. You should look at the results of their campaigns as an indicator of the quality of their services.
What to Expect from Professional SEO Services
What an SEO will do first is ensure that your site gets indexed by the search engines. They will adapt the inbound links, content, and design of your site to optimize it for the search engines.
SEO criteria are always in a state of flux so what worked a year ago may not work now. If you are trying to rank #1 for a highly competitive term, you can’t expect to hire an SEO and get those results overnight. For instance, search engines highly value links that have been built over a long period of time. However, it is obviously not possible for an SEO to get these types of links very fast.
Be Careful of Aggressive SEO Tactics
Some SEO companies are known to use aggressive optimization tactics, which can lead to your site getting banned from the search engines. In order to stay on the safe side, stick with the guidelines published by the search engines. Although aggressive techniques can often get results when the usual techniques fail, the consequences can be severe.
Most importantly, when hiring an SEO company, be wary of ranking guarantees. A #1 spot in the search engine results cannot be guaranteed. Make sure that whatever an SEO company guarantees in their contract with you can be tracked and measured.
The Importance of Web 2.0 to Business
Nowadays, Web 2.0 is fortunate to have been working with many leading companies and intellectuals on enterprise social computing. Web 2.0 users believe they have a great understanding of this space, and they also completely agree with the constructive appraisal of the importance of Web 2.0 tools for the venture.
Web users agree that Web 2.0 is the newest wave in corporate technology adoptions and could have extra sweeping organizational impact than technologies accepted in the 1990 such as venture resource preparation, client relationship administration, and provide sequence management. They suggest that the newest Web 2.0 tools for ventures have a physically powerful bottom-up ingredient and can engage a wide base of personnel.
Web 2.0 enthusiasts also believe that “earlier technologies often require expensive and lengthy technical implementations as well as the realignment of formal business procedure” and they said that “new tools are different.” While they are intrinsically unruly and they frequently challenge an institute and its customs, they are not technically mix to implement. Rather, they are a comparatively lightweight overlay to the presented communications.
Through their census of international executives, users believe that though the expenditure on Web 2.0 device for venture is “a relatively self-effacing one billion dollar,” they forecast that the level of savings, in spite of the recent recession, should grow up by more than fifteen percent (15%) yearly over the coming five years – a surely non-insignificant quantity.
They have identified 6 key factors they believe are critical to success in an attempt to implement Web 2.0 tools in the venture.
Finally the acknowledgment of Web 2.0 technologies in business is growing. Encouraging involvement calls for latest approaches that rupture with the techniques utilized to deploy IT in history.
Web users agree that Web 2.0 is the newest wave in corporate technology adoptions and could have extra sweeping organizational impact than technologies accepted in the 1990 such as venture resource preparation, client relationship administration, and provide sequence management. They suggest that the newest Web 2.0 tools for ventures have a physically powerful bottom-up ingredient and can engage a wide base of personnel.
Web 2.0 enthusiasts also believe that “earlier technologies often require expensive and lengthy technical implementations as well as the realignment of formal business procedure” and they said that “new tools are different.” While they are intrinsically unruly and they frequently challenge an institute and its customs, they are not technically mix to implement. Rather, they are a comparatively lightweight overlay to the presented communications.
Through their census of international executives, users believe that though the expenditure on Web 2.0 device for venture is “a relatively self-effacing one billion dollar,” they forecast that the level of savings, in spite of the recent recession, should grow up by more than fifteen percent (15%) yearly over the coming five years – a surely non-insignificant quantity.
They have identified 6 key factors they believe are critical to success in an attempt to implement Web 2.0 tools in the venture.
- Transformation to a bottom-up society needs assistance from the top
- The greatest uses come from clients “but they need help to scale”
- What’s in the workflow is what obtains utilized
- Plea to the partaker’s personalities and wants “not just their wallets”
- The correct solution comes from the right member
- Balance the top-down and self-management of jeopardy
Finally the acknowledgment of Web 2.0 technologies in business is growing. Encouraging involvement calls for latest approaches that rupture with the techniques utilized to deploy IT in history.
Blogging for SEO
If you’re SEO link building using organic methods, chances are that the words ‘guest post’ have come across your radar. Search engine optimization experts recommend guest posting on blogs as an easy way to get a high-quality link. Compared to other methods, it’s surprisingly easy.
Don’t be tempted to mistake ‘easy’ for ‘effortless’, however. If you’re thinking about making a guest post on a popular blog as part of your SEO marketing campaign, it’s important to put your best foot forward.
*Choose your topic carefully. It’s no use covering something that’s been done to death, or has already been well-covered by the blogger who has invited you to guest. To impress your audience and increase the likelihood of drawing traffic back to your site, your post has to be something special. Talk to us at searchengineoptimization.co.uk about choosing topics for guest blogging.
*Don’t give it your second-best. It’s tempting to send off mediocre content for a guest post. After all, if you’re going to spend time crafting content, it’s only natural to want to see it benefit your SEO campaign directly. Putting mediocre content out on the net is never a good idea. Boost your reputation with top-notch content.
*Remember that you have two audiences. It’s always important to think of your reader when composing content. If you’re guest blogging, you have two groups of readers. While the audience of the blog should be your main concern, don’t forget that you’re out to impress the blog’s owner as well.
Don’t be tempted to mistake ‘easy’ for ‘effortless’, however. If you’re thinking about making a guest post on a popular blog as part of your SEO marketing campaign, it’s important to put your best foot forward.
*Choose your topic carefully. It’s no use covering something that’s been done to death, or has already been well-covered by the blogger who has invited you to guest. To impress your audience and increase the likelihood of drawing traffic back to your site, your post has to be something special. Talk to us at searchengineoptimization.co.uk about choosing topics for guest blogging.
*Don’t give it your second-best. It’s tempting to send off mediocre content for a guest post. After all, if you’re going to spend time crafting content, it’s only natural to want to see it benefit your SEO campaign directly. Putting mediocre content out on the net is never a good idea. Boost your reputation with top-notch content.
*Remember that you have two audiences. It’s always important to think of your reader when composing content. If you’re guest blogging, you have two groups of readers. While the audience of the blog should be your main concern, don’t forget that you’re out to impress the blog’s owner as well.
Tips for Enhancing your Content Writing
It takes time to develop the skill of writing balanced content for your website. Once you have mastered the art of producing material that appeals to both readers and search engines there are more enhancements you can use to make them even more effective:
Internal link building
Outstanding content is essential for successful SEO but internal link building is often tackled poorly. Internal links are vital for successful SEO campaigns and if done effectively will ensure positive page rankings. Pages are also easier to navigate as a result and by using tools such as SEO Smart Links you can automatically set up good quality links.
Title tags, URLs and meta descriptions
Page titles are often overlooked and yet these small details can have a big impact on SEO rankings. Using long winded titles can be mistake and cause issues with Google. Keep then short. The same applies to URLs – use five words maximum. Also check out your meta descriptions.
Keyword research
Once the topic for an article has been found then look at the keywords for that area. Use free keyword research tools to keep your budget fluid. Be aware that the data is sometimes inconsistent, but you’ll gain some excellent insights. Use tools to highlight key phrase variations which can inspire new inspiration for further articles. Every new keyword and phrase can open up new topics to write about on your blog section or in information articles.
Internal link building
Outstanding content is essential for successful SEO but internal link building is often tackled poorly. Internal links are vital for successful SEO campaigns and if done effectively will ensure positive page rankings. Pages are also easier to navigate as a result and by using tools such as SEO Smart Links you can automatically set up good quality links.
Title tags, URLs and meta descriptions
Page titles are often overlooked and yet these small details can have a big impact on SEO rankings. Using long winded titles can be mistake and cause issues with Google. Keep then short. The same applies to URLs – use five words maximum. Also check out your meta descriptions.
Keyword research
Once the topic for an article has been found then look at the keywords for that area. Use free keyword research tools to keep your budget fluid. Be aware that the data is sometimes inconsistent, but you’ll gain some excellent insights. Use tools to highlight key phrase variations which can inspire new inspiration for further articles. Every new keyword and phrase can open up new topics to write about on your blog section or in information articles.
The importance of link building strategies
When you hire search engine optimisation services, you will be inundated with various forms of link building strategies. Link building services look fairly straightforward on the surface, but when you delve into them you will realise that they go a lot deeper than you may initially think. There are various layers to link building and at searchengineoptimisation.co.uk we know this can be confusing to some companies. To help understand link building in more detail, it is a good idea to break them down into various sections and focus on each section or type of link one step at a time.
One very effective link strategy is that of reciprocal links. The basic theory behind this is to team up with another website and both provide mutual links to each other’s websites. This needs to be beneficial to both parties and the websites involved need to be relevant to each other. It is quite common for websites to adopt this strategy within article or blog pages, and either comment on the other site’s content or recommend users follow a link to the other website.
Link baiting is one of the most common strategies which companies use, and is all about catching and grabbing attention, as well as getting other people to recommend links to your website too. The best way to entice people in this way is to post relevant and fresh content. Real time searching is good for this, as are social networking sites. If you can write a strong and concise piece of copy, then other sites are more inclined to just comment on your pages and post a link to it, rather than just re-write the content and post it themselves. Anything controversial will usually work well as link bait too, as the online world will be discussing it and distributing the information really quickly.
Backlinks and inbound links are one of the most important things when it comes to making your website work well for you. It is a similar strategy to link baiting, and ultimately results in the same outcome, except backlinks will often come from directories and other web pages as more of a recommendation or a trusted source. Having strong backlinks not only dramatically increases traffic to your website, but it also creates a more relevant and trustworthy site. This, in turn, is then favoured more by the search engines and in most cases will increase page ranking within SERPs.
Link building within your website is also very important. Where you refer to your company name within a piece of content, it can be good to have this phrase as a link back to your homepage. Navigation is the key, and incorporating a ‘quick links’ section into your homepage for the most commonly searched for topics or information is a great way to make your site more user friendly, and easy for users to get around. Links are what make the online world go round, so getting them right in all instances is crucial.
One very effective link strategy is that of reciprocal links. The basic theory behind this is to team up with another website and both provide mutual links to each other’s websites. This needs to be beneficial to both parties and the websites involved need to be relevant to each other. It is quite common for websites to adopt this strategy within article or blog pages, and either comment on the other site’s content or recommend users follow a link to the other website.
Link baiting is one of the most common strategies which companies use, and is all about catching and grabbing attention, as well as getting other people to recommend links to your website too. The best way to entice people in this way is to post relevant and fresh content. Real time searching is good for this, as are social networking sites. If you can write a strong and concise piece of copy, then other sites are more inclined to just comment on your pages and post a link to it, rather than just re-write the content and post it themselves. Anything controversial will usually work well as link bait too, as the online world will be discussing it and distributing the information really quickly.
Backlinks and inbound links are one of the most important things when it comes to making your website work well for you. It is a similar strategy to link baiting, and ultimately results in the same outcome, except backlinks will often come from directories and other web pages as more of a recommendation or a trusted source. Having strong backlinks not only dramatically increases traffic to your website, but it also creates a more relevant and trustworthy site. This, in turn, is then favoured more by the search engines and in most cases will increase page ranking within SERPs.
Link building within your website is also very important. Where you refer to your company name within a piece of content, it can be good to have this phrase as a link back to your homepage. Navigation is the key, and incorporating a ‘quick links’ section into your homepage for the most commonly searched for topics or information is a great way to make your site more user friendly, and easy for users to get around. Links are what make the online world go round, so getting them right in all instances is crucial.
The importance of RSS feeds in SEO
An RSS Feed Reader is a plugin that we talked about that you can use to create a bookmark of content. Everytime you check for new content, instead of visiting all your favorite sites, you can merely click a single button and it checks for you. New articles show up with previews and the ability to see the content in your browser without visiting the site.
Beyond being a source of information to your users, RSS can be a vital part of your SEO strategy. RSS feeds can be optimized for search engines and can therefore generate significant amounts of traffic showing interest in that content. They also cache very quickly, allowing the search engines to index your site much faster, thus boosting your web site’s SEO strategy. If you create your RSS feed properly, Google’s spiders will more easily recognize new content and you can leverage the posts as content through linking opportunities.
There are 10 easy ways to integrate an RSS feed into your overall SEO strategy:
Use common search terms in your RSS headline titles.
Integrate your RSS feed into your site, displaying them prominently.
Use full path links within the internal and external links and use the links to emphasize the most popular keywords.
Create accounts on major search engine sites then post your RSS feed on a page within your account. This will help your RSS feed be recognized easier and faster by those engines.
Use themes for your feeds to ensure that content gets linked back to the publishers site.
Submit your feed and feed links to popular sites and directories.
Create descriptions of your feeds to let the user know what each feed is about. Put just enough teaser content to peak the users attention but not enough to summarize the content.
Subscribe to your own feed to ensure that your content looks the way you want.
Reinforce your brand identity by using corporate images in your feed. (and use alt text on your images!)
Use alphabetical lists (or make your first feed start with the letter a) so that when your feed displays amongst other feeds it will be displayed first alphabetically.
Link Building Strategies
Find websites that are mentioning your URL but have not hyperlinked to your website
Recruit on a college/university website (even from outside your city/area; you never know what talents you’ll find in other cities)
Start a coupon program and get links from coupon websites
Build some links using Flickr
Create link wheels using social websites and web 2.0 sites
Use Google Alerts to get notifications for the targeted keywords and get links from newly found sources
1. Social Media Sites
The quickest way for an exceptional piece of content to get a lot of attention that results in secondary links is to make the home page of Digg or Delicious Popular. There are scores of similar sites that can drive quality traffic as well, such as Reddit, TechMeme, and Magnolia. For more offbeat content, Fark will shake your server. Plus there are dozens of aggregator sites such as PopURLS that also drive traffic based on your inclusion at the primary site.
If you’ve done a great job with your headline, it should magnetically draw people in. However, you need to understand the audience of each social media site. What works as a headline for Digg often won’t work for Reddit. Tweak accordingly, but try to retain your keywords in the title if at all possible, because most of the resulting links will simply regurgitate that title.
Another key element for success on Digg is the summary description, because many people will vote for content based soley on the headline and the brief copy that describes it. Sometimes this may simply be your existing opening paragraph, but you might craft a specialized description that best appeals to the culture of the site.
Submitting your own content to social media sites is looked down upon (at least with your real name), so it makes sense to have a friend submit for you. When specifically targeting a social news site, you want to control the headline and summary copy, because the exact same content submitted with poor headline and description copy may go absolutely nowhere.
2. Linking Out
Engaging in dialogue with the relevant blogs in your niche is a great way to get noticed, and it can lead to links back. Bloggers definitely watch who is linking to them thanks to Technorati, and you can take the initiative by linking out first before looking for one in return.
Simply linking out for the sake of linking won’t accomplish much, especially with bloggers who gets lots of links. The key is to be strategic about how you link and what your say.
It’s just like any other conversation. Join in and add your two cents, but make sure you’ve got something substantive to say that will reflect well on you. Use a great headline to make sure you are noticed, and then deliver the goods. And since your cornerstone content is the foundation of what the conversation is likely about, finding a way to mention it in the context of the dialogue will naturally bring it to the attention of influencers in your field.
3. Networking Emails
The days of flat out link begging are fading, but you can still reach out to other bloggers as a way to raise your own profile. Again, can you figure out what’s in it for them?
More than one-off link requests, networking via email and instant messaging is about establishing and growing relationships with others in the social media space. These are the linkerati—prominent bloggers in your niche, top Digg users, relevant web journalists, and influential web forum contributors.
Write your introductory emails from a copywriting perspective. Catch attention, gain interest, and create a desire to help you in the future by offering something that benefits them first.
4. Guest Posting
Another benefit of networking within your niche is that it creates opportunities to make a guest writing appearance. You can contribute content that not only allows you to raise your profile, but allows for links back to your own site. Once again, creating killer original content will open doors for you, especially when it’s created for the benefit of someone else. And you can use that killer cornerstone content you’ve already produced as an example of the quality you can deliver.
Depending on your relationship with the site owner, you may be able to link to your cornerstone content from within the body of the content itself, but only if the citation is extremely relevant to the content and beneficial to the reader. Otherwise, your link will need to appear in your byline.
Most people tend to link to their site or blog URL in the byline of contributed content. Turn it around by focusing the byline on the reader instead of yourself, and feature your cornerstone content instead of your home page.
For example, if I were to guest blog somewhere about strategies for attracting links, which byline is more attractive to the reader when finishing my article?
NO: Brian Clark writes about online copywriting at Copyblogger.
YES: Check out Brian Clark’s free SEO Copywriting 2.0 tutorial, which is all about the new style of online writing that helps your web site rank well in search engines.
Not only is that better for the reader, but it’s better for you. Your link contains keyword-rich anchor text that helps your cornerstone content rank higher.
5. Article Directories
At one point in time, submitting about 20 articles to a directory like Ezine Articles with the right anchor text would get you a really good ranking for some search terms, at least in Yahoo and MSN. However, because the engines discount duplicate content, having dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of sites republish your article (and linked byline) no longer does the trick by itself.
However, a site like Ezine Articles is still excellent for creating exposure to your cornerstone content. Having a link to your multi-part tutorial displayed on hundreds of web pages drives direct traffic, and can lead to your content being referenced in other posts and articles that do pass on link authority.
The strategy is much the same as with guest posting on a blog. Write original content that does not appear on your site, and submit to one or more reputable directories. Repeat until you get results.
Recruit on a college/university website (even from outside your city/area; you never know what talents you’ll find in other cities)
Start a coupon program and get links from coupon websites
Build some links using Flickr
Create link wheels using social websites and web 2.0 sites
Use Google Alerts to get notifications for the targeted keywords and get links from newly found sources
1. Social Media Sites
The quickest way for an exceptional piece of content to get a lot of attention that results in secondary links is to make the home page of Digg or Delicious Popular. There are scores of similar sites that can drive quality traffic as well, such as Reddit, TechMeme, and Magnolia. For more offbeat content, Fark will shake your server. Plus there are dozens of aggregator sites such as PopURLS that also drive traffic based on your inclusion at the primary site.
If you’ve done a great job with your headline, it should magnetically draw people in. However, you need to understand the audience of each social media site. What works as a headline for Digg often won’t work for Reddit. Tweak accordingly, but try to retain your keywords in the title if at all possible, because most of the resulting links will simply regurgitate that title.
Another key element for success on Digg is the summary description, because many people will vote for content based soley on the headline and the brief copy that describes it. Sometimes this may simply be your existing opening paragraph, but you might craft a specialized description that best appeals to the culture of the site.
Submitting your own content to social media sites is looked down upon (at least with your real name), so it makes sense to have a friend submit for you. When specifically targeting a social news site, you want to control the headline and summary copy, because the exact same content submitted with poor headline and description copy may go absolutely nowhere.
2. Linking Out
Engaging in dialogue with the relevant blogs in your niche is a great way to get noticed, and it can lead to links back. Bloggers definitely watch who is linking to them thanks to Technorati, and you can take the initiative by linking out first before looking for one in return.
Simply linking out for the sake of linking won’t accomplish much, especially with bloggers who gets lots of links. The key is to be strategic about how you link and what your say.
It’s just like any other conversation. Join in and add your two cents, but make sure you’ve got something substantive to say that will reflect well on you. Use a great headline to make sure you are noticed, and then deliver the goods. And since your cornerstone content is the foundation of what the conversation is likely about, finding a way to mention it in the context of the dialogue will naturally bring it to the attention of influencers in your field.
3. Networking Emails
The days of flat out link begging are fading, but you can still reach out to other bloggers as a way to raise your own profile. Again, can you figure out what’s in it for them?
More than one-off link requests, networking via email and instant messaging is about establishing and growing relationships with others in the social media space. These are the linkerati—prominent bloggers in your niche, top Digg users, relevant web journalists, and influential web forum contributors.
Write your introductory emails from a copywriting perspective. Catch attention, gain interest, and create a desire to help you in the future by offering something that benefits them first.
4. Guest Posting
Another benefit of networking within your niche is that it creates opportunities to make a guest writing appearance. You can contribute content that not only allows you to raise your profile, but allows for links back to your own site. Once again, creating killer original content will open doors for you, especially when it’s created for the benefit of someone else. And you can use that killer cornerstone content you’ve already produced as an example of the quality you can deliver.
Depending on your relationship with the site owner, you may be able to link to your cornerstone content from within the body of the content itself, but only if the citation is extremely relevant to the content and beneficial to the reader. Otherwise, your link will need to appear in your byline.
Most people tend to link to their site or blog URL in the byline of contributed content. Turn it around by focusing the byline on the reader instead of yourself, and feature your cornerstone content instead of your home page.
For example, if I were to guest blog somewhere about strategies for attracting links, which byline is more attractive to the reader when finishing my article?
NO: Brian Clark writes about online copywriting at Copyblogger.
YES: Check out Brian Clark’s free SEO Copywriting 2.0 tutorial, which is all about the new style of online writing that helps your web site rank well in search engines.
Not only is that better for the reader, but it’s better for you. Your link contains keyword-rich anchor text that helps your cornerstone content rank higher.
5. Article Directories
At one point in time, submitting about 20 articles to a directory like Ezine Articles with the right anchor text would get you a really good ranking for some search terms, at least in Yahoo and MSN. However, because the engines discount duplicate content, having dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of sites republish your article (and linked byline) no longer does the trick by itself.
However, a site like Ezine Articles is still excellent for creating exposure to your cornerstone content. Having a link to your multi-part tutorial displayed on hundreds of web pages drives direct traffic, and can lead to your content being referenced in other posts and articles that do pass on link authority.
The strategy is much the same as with guest posting on a blog. Write original content that does not appear on your site, and submit to one or more reputable directories. Repeat until you get results.
To improve your Web Site’s position in the different search engines you must understand the basic criteria that search engines use to index and retrieve documents.
The best thing of all it is FREE, you do not have to pay for a banner ads that you see on top the search engines and most people pay attention to the results of the search. Banner ads have been around for some time now and studies show that most people surfing the web just tune them out or ignore the banner ads and search the results pages. Banner ads have an average click through rate of 1 to 3%.
Good search engine positions are both FREE and effective and with just a few good positions in a few search engines will often generate more profits for you than spending thousand of dollars in banner ads. If you have your site near the top of a keyword search on a search engine, it will get more hits than banner ads.
Swap Links
Some of the major "spider" search engines (i.e., search engines like Yahoo, Google, Teoma and Lycos) catalog how many links there are going to your website. The more links there are, the more important your website is perceived to be and the higher the placement of your site will be in search engine results. Thus, submitting your URL and site information to thousands of search engines and directories is strategic because thousands of links back to your site will be created.
Meta Tags
Meta Tags are hidden HTML tags used to control your site description in the search engines that support them: Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, Lycos, AOL Search, MSN Search and Netscape Search. Although the Meta Tags will help improve your position in the search engines, they will not guarantee that your web site appears first. A Meta tag basically tells the search engine spider when visiting your site how you want your site described and indexed.
The best thing of all it is FREE, you do not have to pay for a banner ads that you see on top the search engines and most people pay attention to the results of the search. Banner ads have been around for some time now and studies show that most people surfing the web just tune them out or ignore the banner ads and search the results pages. Banner ads have an average click through rate of 1 to 3%.
Good search engine positions are both FREE and effective and with just a few good positions in a few search engines will often generate more profits for you than spending thousand of dollars in banner ads. If you have your site near the top of a keyword search on a search engine, it will get more hits than banner ads.
Swap Links
Some of the major "spider" search engines (i.e., search engines like Yahoo, Google, Teoma and Lycos) catalog how many links there are going to your website. The more links there are, the more important your website is perceived to be and the higher the placement of your site will be in search engine results. Thus, submitting your URL and site information to thousands of search engines and directories is strategic because thousands of links back to your site will be created.
Meta Tags
Meta Tags are hidden HTML tags used to control your site description in the search engines that support them: Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, Lycos, AOL Search, MSN Search and Netscape Search. Although the Meta Tags will help improve your position in the search engines, they will not guarantee that your web site appears first. A Meta tag basically tells the search engine spider when visiting your site how you want your site described and indexed.
TITLE
This is the content that will determine the title of your site as read in a search engine. It is helpful to include your company name and a major keyword in this section. If your Web page lacks a Title Tag, some search engine results will display the phrase "No Title" in the first line of your listing. That can limit your search engine traffic.
DESCRIPTION
The description tag should include a well-written description of your page that includes your keywords. This is the information the search engines will display and how your prospects will find your web site. You want it to grab the attention of the web surfer, so he clicks on your site and not your competitors. If your Web page lacks a Meta Description Tag, some search engines will display the first few words on the page as your listing description. That might not be your most compelling copy for driving visitors to your site.
KEYWORDS
The keyword tag tells the search engine which keywords you wish to be listed under. Make sure you concentrate on your most powerful keywords, that web surfers would put in to find your site.
Business Card and Stationary Design
As any successful business owner knows, it’s the small details that can make an all important impression on wooing clients from other companies. From a smiling face at the front reception desk to ensuring that the coffeepot is always filled and ready for business, these are items that can be taken care of easily and help to ensure that a good impression is always made, at a low cost. One of these small but extremely important items is the use of business stationery. A well-turned out letter or invitation can be extremely beneficial in making a good first impression on a client.
The great thing about business stationery is that it is so adaptable, with the ability to be customized for any sort of unique need that an individual or office could think of. This can include the use of personalized letterhead, business cards, or other individual options that will be sure to set your business apart. With the help of a graphic designer and a printing press, the options are basically endless. Little splashes of color may be preferred by some, or a sleek, minimalist clean look by others. Business cards are the way in which contacts that are met will most remember you, so special care should be taken that they match your own personality or that of your business.
The great thing about business stationery is that it is so adaptable, with the ability to be customized for any sort of unique need that an individual or office could think of. This can include the use of personalized letterhead, business cards, or other individual options that will be sure to set your business apart. With the help of a graphic designer and a printing press, the options are basically endless. Little splashes of color may be preferred by some, or a sleek, minimalist clean look by others. Business cards are the way in which contacts that are met will most remember you, so special care should be taken that they match your own personality or that of your business.
How to get high ranking in search engines
For good ranking in the major search engines such as Google, you need to have content based on a theme categorized by two or three key phrases.
Assuming that you don't want to spend a lot of money paying for traffic, then getting a high search engine ranking will be the most critical part of your campaign to attract visitors. If you can a good search engine placement then your site, at least in terms of visitors, is likely to be successful.
At this point I would like to point out that it's not actually a top search engine ranking we are trying to obtain, but a means of getting lots of visitors. I say this because some people achieve a top position in one or more of the major search engines yet they get very little traffic. Why?
Simple. They are not using keywords that people are searching for! You simply must use the right keywords!
You could optimize your pages and start getting the position you want for those keywords, but does it get the traffic you expected? Of course, this depends on how many people use the keywords that the page is optimized for.
Think of good key phrases that people might use if they were looking for your site's subject matter. Try this in the top search engines, then see just how relevant the top pages are to this subject term or phrase and how much competition there is.
If the pages seem to be irrelevant the search engine may be struggling to find the most appropriate sites for those particular keywords. This could mean that you stand a good chance of getting a good placement for that key phrase.
Unfortunately however, your key phrase may not be a popular phrase being used by the vast majority of searchers - even though they may be looking for your kind of site. In other words they may be (in fact, they probably are) typing different search terms and phrases.
Assuming that you don't want to spend a lot of money paying for traffic, then getting a high search engine ranking will be the most critical part of your campaign to attract visitors. If you can a good search engine placement then your site, at least in terms of visitors, is likely to be successful.
At this point I would like to point out that it's not actually a top search engine ranking we are trying to obtain, but a means of getting lots of visitors. I say this because some people achieve a top position in one or more of the major search engines yet they get very little traffic. Why?
Simple. They are not using keywords that people are searching for! You simply must use the right keywords!
You could optimize your pages and start getting the position you want for those keywords, but does it get the traffic you expected? Of course, this depends on how many people use the keywords that the page is optimized for.
Think of good key phrases that people might use if they were looking for your site's subject matter. Try this in the top search engines, then see just how relevant the top pages are to this subject term or phrase and how much competition there is.
If the pages seem to be irrelevant the search engine may be struggling to find the most appropriate sites for those particular keywords. This could mean that you stand a good chance of getting a good placement for that key phrase.
Unfortunately however, your key phrase may not be a popular phrase being used by the vast majority of searchers - even though they may be looking for your kind of site. In other words they may be (in fact, they probably are) typing different search terms and phrases.
Hopefully all this will help significantly in your efforts to establish a good position in the top search engines. Here are three further essentials:
1. Get a domain name. You will not be considered a serious site without one, and the top search engines will probably ignore you altogether.
2. Remember, a key phrase will usually get you a much higher ranking than just a key word, and will also pull you much more targeted visitors.
3. Start building up your link popularity. Create a page that shows links to related sites and ask the Webmasters of those sites to link to you. This can be a very time consuming job but is becoming increasingly important in order to get a good placement on the top search engines (especially Google).
SEO Link Building with Web Content Secrets
Comparison with Other Linking Methods
Reciprocal Linking: The big advantage of content distribution over swapping links is that the links built are one-way, and therefore presumably more valuable. Of course, reciprocal links still have value, but relying primarily on them might hamper your SEO efforts.
Indirect Reciprocal Links: I link my site A to your site, so you link your site to my site B. The problems are that this can be a lot of work, and also, Google can detect indirect links if you do it more than once with the same group of sites, which might make your linking arrangements look like a link farm.
Paid Links: The problem with paid links is 1) the costs add up; 2) search engines are getting better and better at discounting paid links. According to Matt Cutts' blog, "I wouldn't be surprised if search engines begin to take stronger action against link buying in the near future...link-selling sites can lose their ability to give reputation (e.g. PageRank and anchortext)."
Kinds of Content to Distribute
Articles. This is the essential kind of content distribution, to the point that many people consider content distribution simple as "article marketing." However, you're missing out on a few other sources of links if you only do articles.
News blurbs. A lot of news-style sites will only reprint pieces of a couple of paragraphs. The good news is that often enough the whole point of these news blurbs is to include links to other sites, in a sort of "look what we've found" kind of way, a la Slashdot.org
Press Releases. There are some sites that aggressively reprint press releases. A press release is like an article, only in a very specific press release format, and frankly that's not that enjoyable to read. I don't know why some sites are so head-over-heels over press releases, but, hey, that's their business. The good news is that even if you can't write and don't want to hire a writer, press releases (at least basic ones) are pretty easy to do.
Tools, games and other webware. Sites with popular tools, software, Flash games and other webware often let other sites use it in exchange for a link. The big potential downside is technical support.
Images. Images, especially charts and photographs, are important forms of content on the web. If you have great images on your site and people ask you to use them on their sites, require a backlink in exchange. The problem with images is that they are so easily stolen. Stolen words can be uncovered with a web search. You could try to watermark images with a copyright symbol, URL, and the link requirement. But in the process you'd make the image much less desirable.
Web design templates. These have been freely distributed for a long time. Yet they are even more easily stolen than images. Also, if you embed a link in the footer of a web template, what you'll get back are sitewide links, which are often thought to be filtered out in search engines.
Maximizing Content Distribution Links' Effectiveness: Anchor Text
Anchor text. You need optimized anchor text to rank high for any competitive keyword. That means you need your target keyword in the anchor text, and very importantly, variants of the target keyword (too many links with the exact same anchor text may be filtered). The problem is that some sites by default don't let you choose the anchor text of the link to your site. So you need to: 1) look for sites that do reprint content with optimized anchor text; 2) specifically ask for your target anchor text to be used. Also, do keep in mind that a true natural linking structure will require you to have a number of links that are not anchor-text-optimized, typically with the URL as the anchor text.How to Find Sites
Finding sites to submit content is the biggest challenge. You can start by asking around to any other webmasters you already have a relationship with. Next, web-search. The classic method is "submit article" + [keyword]. Most of the sites you find this way won't be good candidates, which is why this can be a bit labor-intensive. I use offshore labor for this step, as well as a program that will sort and store all the search results into a spreadsheet; otherwise it might not be worth it. Then again, the same would be true for finding reciprocal linking partners.Ethical Issues & Best Practices
Golden rule: remember that there's a human being who has to approve your article for submission.
Read and adhere to all submission guidelines.
Avoid automation. There's almost always some detail of submission that requires a human eye: a multitude of html formatting requirements, changing site themes, etc.
Don't submit by email unless specifically instructed. Using a contact form prevents possible sp@m accusations.
Only approach websites that request content submissions.
Don't misrepresent reprint content as original.
Don't submit the same content too often. After about two hundred reprints, a lot of people will be seeing the same thing over and over again and possibly complaining.
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