Would SMO Be Better If Facebook Offered Blogging?
Chris Crum at WebProNews suggested that Facebook replace it Notes tab with a Blog tab. It’s not a bad idea.
Facebook users would gain an immediate benefit if Facebook offered blogging. No. 1, the built in Facebook user base would be incredible. This is now the second most visited site online, right behind Google. Facebook could compete head on with Google’s Blogger and actually do well.
Not only would users of Facebook benefit with that feature, but Facebook itself would benefit as it would see an immediate increase in user-generated content, improve its search engine friendliness and more people would stay on the website longer. But would a Facebook blog improve social media optimization (SMO)?
I believe it would improve search engine optimization for anyone who had a Facebook blog. I also believe it would improve SMO in a number of ways.
- First and foremost, Facebook users would likely connect more through a blog
- A blog could be brandable just like a Facebook page
- With thousands of Facebook blogs pumping out content on a regular basis, Facebook would likely see more Twitter traffic
- Widgetized blogs would likely lead to more video sharing on Facebook
I don’t really see any negatives in the prospect of adding a Facebook blog. Do you?
The Simplest SMO On The Planet
Social media optimization (SMO) has come into its own. Not only do most webmasters today try to learn everything they can about search engine optimization and the methods the pros use to get ranked for their most important keywords, but they are also learning everything they can about social media optimization. Some webmasters actually spend more time on the latter than on the former.
The best SMO in the world is also the simplest. You don’t even have to leave your website. The goal is to get your site visitors to do the work for you.
If you’ve visited many websites at all then you’ve likely seen the share buttons. They come in various sizes, shapes and colors. Some say “share”, some say “bookmark this” and some use another phrase. But there is almost always an icon, a chicklet, and a link that allows your site visitors to easily share your content on their favorite social sites. And some even allow your visitors to e-mail your content to their friends.
The key is to learn your audience. Are they heavy Digg users or Stumblers? Are they Twitterers? Do you use e-mail more frequently?
If you learn the online social habits of your visitors and provide them an easy way to share content in their preferred content and at their preferred online haunts then you’ve got a big piece of the social media puzzle solved. The rest, as they say, gravy.
Is Twitter Necessary?
Chris Crum of WebProNews interviewed Matt Bailey, who said that you can run a successful business online without Twitter. Really? I thought Twitter was all that and a bag of chips.
Actually, he’s right. You CAN run a successful business online without Twitter. In fact, everyone did before 2005.
When it comes to social media, there’s a new brand of hype. What happens is, the online equivalent of the jet set (the early adopters) do some experimenting. When one of them finds a workable formula for a new social tool they start to tell their friends. Their friends do an experiment and confirm the report. They tell their friends. Before you know it, the news steam rolls and the spammers start moving in. Hype builds more hype.
But the reality is, you can do without the hype. What I mean, don’t get sucked into it. You should start the hype, not follow it.
Hype is really another word for viral marketing. It works. When you are the subject of the hype you’ll know it works. When you are the one being dragged around by the hype, all you can think about is, “Man, this sucks.”
Well, let’s not get dramatic. Social media optimization is not about following the hype. It’s about creating it. And you can run a successful business without Twitter. Of course, you can run a successful business with it too.
6 Online Conversations With Social Media Implications
WebProNews visited with some search and social industry professionals in Chicago and came away with a list of 10 discussions in Internet marketing that are relevant for today and the future. Six of those 10 discussions are relevant to social media in at least a small way, but most of them hit the social media relevance factor directly and head on. Here are the 6 discussions on social media you should pay attention to if not get involved in:
- Ranking In Real-Time Search – Real-time search has become synonymous with Twitter, and partly Facebook. You can’t argue that this doesn’t have some serious social media marketing connection. Plus, it’s interesting.
- The Future Of Online PR – Online PR used to be about getting found in the search engines. Now it’s about getting found. Anywhere and everywhere. More than likely, if you use online PR in the future then you’ll be doing it through at least one social media outlet.
- Lessons from Political Social Media – President Obama wasn’t the first to make social media relevant for politics. That was Ron Paul. But the nation’s chief executive did do the most in making it relevant for the rest of us.
- Small Businesses And Social Media – Any discussion of social media must involve small business and the ways that average business owners can benefit. This discussion is a must.
- Moving Beyond Google – What’s beyond Google? A lot of things. Like Facebook, Twitter, and the loads of other social media websites out there ready for you to leverage for your business.
- Optimizing for Mixed Media Search Results – Mixed media optimization involves search, social, video, and viral marketing. Your arsenal of online marketing tools is as varied as your imagination. This is one of the best discussions you’ll ever witness.
That’s six out of 10 and they’re all related to social media in some way. The other four discussions are about search and PPC and they’re just as interesting. Get involved in these discussions now. Or learn more about social media optimization.
How Social Media Optimization Will Get More Complicated
The Web has increasingly grown more complicated since its inception and search engine optimization along with it. The next wave of search will undoubtedly be social media search and the result will end up being a more complicated social media optimization process.
Currently, it’s not so difficult but neither was SEO when it was first conceived. Now, however, talk to any Internet marketer and you are sure to get a list of do’s and don’ts that would make a bug go cross-eyed.
In the wake of Google’s and Bing’s near simultaneous and recent announcement that there is an agreement with Twitter to incorporate real-time search into both search engines’ universal search results as well as Google’s announcement that social search is just around the corner, it is likely that the next big playground of competition will be in social media optimization.
Not only will the search engines themselves be competing for marketers’ attentions, but marketers will be competing for an audience’s attention.
There is no doubt that Twitter and Facebook will be at the center of the social media optimization wars. But what other networks will be there? My guess is any network of any size at all will eventually be incorporated into any social search model at the search engines. If you have not already started charting your course for social media optimization then now is the time.
SMO Is More Than A Social Connection
Social media optimization, or SMO, is about more than connecting with others on a social level. Sure, that’s important, but it isn’t the whole story. What SMO is really all about is getting the attention of people you would like to do business with. Strategy is very important.
At the heart of every effective social media campaign is an honest portrayal of who you are and what you have to offer potential prospects. Remember, you are engaged in “pull” marketing, not “push” marketing. That is, you are are drawing people toward you, not pushing your product on them. Television is push, social media is pull.
Pull marketing is much more subtle that push marketing. Therefore, social media optimization is about subtlety. The idea is to capture people’s attention. How do you do that? Here are a few tips that might help you:
- Speak their language – If you’re talking to teenagers, use colloquial lingo that they’ll understand. If speaking to professionals then try using their business talk. Be sure to speak the language of your prospects.
- Find out what they want – Don’t just jump out and start selling people stuff. Find out what your target audience is interested in. Offer them that.
- Show up at the right place – Nothing is as ineffective as marketing through the wrong channel. If your prospective client is more likely to be at LinkedIn then you should be there; if they are more likely to be at Facebook then you should be there.
- Yes, SEO still works – Just because it’s social media doesn’t mean that SEO won’t work. Social sites are websites. All the same SEO rules apply. They may require a little different implementation, but SMO and SEO do go together.
- Get your prospect’s attention – In social media you have to lay it on the table. You can’t just hint at something and expect every reader to get it. Make a big splash, but do it appropriately. You are vying against a lot of competition so make sure you attract the attention you deserve.
Social media optimization is about connecting. Do it appropriately, but connect with the right audience at the right place at the right time. That’s true SMO.
How Traffic Can Improve Your Social Media Optimization
One of the factors that Google considers when computing search rankings is traffic – quantity as well as quality. Indeed, quality is perhaps more important than quantity. Sure, a site that gets 100,000 visitors per day may be seen as better than one that gets 10,000 visits per day, but just because you get a lot of visitors doesn’t mean that those visitors value your site. It’s easy to game traffic counts.
Another aspect of traffic comparison is whether or not visitors return to your website. If you have a low percentage of visitors who are return visitors to your website then you may suffer from some quality marks that are hurting you in your rankings. But that’ s not all.
Other aspects of quality traffic include traffic source, time on site, time on page, and bounce rates. I think traffic source is important and will likely become more important and when I say traffic source I’m talking about specific websites and their authority. If you get high quality traffic from a website that is deemed authoritative in the eyes of Google then that counts in your favor. It is conceivable that 10,000 visitors per day where 80% of that traffic comes from high quality, authoritative sites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter versus 100,000 low quality visitors from low quality directories and such could give you more search mojo. Remember, quality counts. And I think Google is getting as sophisticated at judging quality traffic as they are at judging quality links.
The takeaway here is to seek quality traffic from high quality, authoritative social media sites, not rinky-dink startups with no reputation.
Can SMO Substitute SEO?
Can social media optimization (SMO) be a fitting substitute for search engine optimization (SEO)? To answer this question it helps to have a working understanding of both SEO and SMO. Let’s examine:
- SEO – The purpose for SEO is to attract visitors to your website based on search engine queries such that you answer their questions simply by delivering quality content that meets their needs.
- SMO – Social media optimization is the social counterpart to SEO. It doesn’t replace it, but compliments it. SMO allows you to attract new visitors by appealing to your audience’s social needs while grabbing their attention with valid SEO techniques.
It’s important to note that the best SMO relies on sound SEO. Your social media efforts will be enhanced if you start with SEO as the basis of your website building block and use it as your foundation. Let SMO rest on the foundation, not vice versa.
Will Social Media Optimization And Search Engine Optimization Meld Into One?
John Battelle is a brilliant man. He recently wrote a two-part blog post where he challenged search engines on two fronts:
I see two paths toward that goal: one is creating applications on top of “ten blue links” which help me organize and aggregate the knowledge I process while pursuing a search query, and the second is making my searches social, so I can share the process of learning and learn from those who have shared – not unlike Vannevar Bush’s “Memex” concept.
I’m not quite sure what he has in mind on that first point. It could be anything from the ability to make notes, which Google currently allows, to saving an individual search result to be included in subsequent search queries so that ongoing topical searches can be conducted – as opposed to strict keyword searches as they are done now. I can actually see some value in that type of aggregation.
But John Battelle goes further to suggest that search engines should be more social in nature. That would put a completely different spin on the nature of search. To actually include humans – other humans not associated with the search engine – in one’s search process combined with the other elements of search as we know them today and what they could be ten years from now, that would revolutionize search in ways that have not been done as of yet. The problem is, we’re a long way from there right now. Will we ever get there?
Can search engine optimization – the practice of influencing search results using keyword placement, link building, and other tactics – and social media optimization – the practice of writing content that appeals to the denizens of social networks and designed to get them to share it with their friends – ever meld into one product? Should they? What do you think?
Social Media Optimization Tip: Headlines Make All The Difference
Optimizing for social media traffic is a bit different than optimizing for search engines. But there are similarities. When you optimize your landing page for search engines, keywords are extremely important. After all, people will find your site by those keywords. But with social media, while keywords are important, they aren’t the most important thing. Social media users look for something different.
First and foremost, they want a unique experience. Keywords are good for ensuring those social media pages achieve better rankings in the search engines, but what happens if someone finds your content in Digg or StumbleUpon and arrives there from a search engine? You still want them to go to your website and that will take a different approach than merely sprinkling your content with keywords.
Your headline is very important. It should attract attention. More than that, it must get the click. Social media users have two things to go on in deciding whether or not to read your content: The headline and the description, or summary. The headline, more than anything, will determine whether or not they read your content.
What should a headline do? Three things:
- Arouse curiosity
- Tell the reader what to expect from the content
- Use your primary keyword
Understand that Nos. 1 and 2 and more important than No. 3 when it comes to social media optimization. Yes, you want your keyword there for the search engines, but human readers care about the content. It must answer their most pressing questions or make them believe that your content will answer those questions. Get them to click. That’s the goal. And if you achieve that then you’ve done your job.
What Is Social Media Optimization?
Social media optimization is a fancy word Internet marketers use to describe the best practices of marketing a business through various social media channels. Some of those channels might include:
- Blogging
- Digg
- Delicious
- StumbleUpon
- BlogCatalog
- YouTube
That’s just to name a few. There are countless other social bookmarking and social networking sites out there to participate in as well.
Social media optimization involves a few principles that, if followed, will help you reach the right target audience for your message and drive traffic to your website. What are the principles? Glad you asked. These are the principles that we recommend for the best social media optimization practices:
- Create unique content
- Engage your audience through a blog
- Provide a way for your readers to bookmark or share your content
- Distribute your content through RSS, aggregation, and various channels of social media
- Participate in other people’s channel marketing initiatives as well (ie interact)
- Be genuine, not fake
- Use SEO
The idea behind social media is to be conversational. You can do that without being pushy or overbearing. You can also do it and still ask for the sale. Before you jump into a social media campaign, take time to study what social media is, who is using it, and how they are doing it.
The Twitter Debate Continues
Awhile back, I posted my thoughts on the hot topic in the Internet marketing world for that week, namely Twitter. Although I jumped the gun with assumptions about the course this fad would take, I maintain my general position on the matter. I came across a post containing a bunch of reasons to use Twitter, and this sparked my motivation to post yet again about the topic. I must state that the following is only my opinion, based on my experience in the Social Media Optimization world.
While I don’t intend to mention all of the reasons along with my opinion of each, there are a few I’ve chosen which, I believe, the writer is directing toward businesses, rather than individuals. As I failed to make clear in my previous post about Twitter, my opinion was concerning the use of Twitter for business Internet marketing efforts, not those of one person or a small group of people.
Competitive – to track what competitors are doing and thinking (watch their tweets, who they’re conversing with, and so forth). Gain insights!
This is a good idea, but why use Twitter? While the idea behind competitive intelligence is to learn secrets, many companies may overlook that which is out in the open. A lot of companies utilize Twitter to market special deals, new products, and more. This is valuable information that may not be available through more conventional CI practices – information that may help other companies figure out how to market their products.
Employee Tracking – See where your employees are, and even what they’re doing. eg. If you’re a service company with contractors on the road, some have used Twitter to reveal where all their contractors are around a city, which indicates how close they are to their next service call.
Most companies that require this kind of information to operate will likely have a method of tracking already. Whether it’s a “push-to-talk” cellular service or a computer system networked into handheld devices which employees carry on them at all times, there are plenty of ways that businesses track their employees, and other things, which can carry far more responsibility than Twitter can. However, some businesses may find it beneficial to utilize Twitter for simple tasks, such as those mentioned above. It all depends on the company and how they run their business.
Branding – To build awareness, trust, and possibly loyalty. If a company Twitters good information routinely, and isn’t overly self-promotional, the profile will gather followers. The profile is then associated with quality industry news and integrity. Frequency and quality of posts then breed familiarity, and eventually trust.
While the effort put into regular Twitter posts would may be more effectively spent on blogging, there is an advantage to the micro-blogging that Twitter offers. In many cases, posting to Twitter to a loyal following makes it easier, not just for the business to get the information out there, but for all of those potential customers to find it. Utilizing Twitter broadcasts and feeds on company websites, blogs, and other SM profiles make it easy to put that information in sight of thousands, instantly. However, any company planning to use the Twitter service to reach users should be careful of how often they post, and what they post about. The key here is regular, consistant information. Like anything in the social media realm, offers go a long way, and good information is priceless when compared to the mundane onslaught of Twitterers posting about what they ate for breakfast.
Reputation Management – to learn about issues and problems people are having with your company, so that they can be corrected. I’m a firm advocate that every problem is an opportunity, when viewed from the right perspective.
Again, the effort put into reputation management would likely be better spent on other means, but a company large enough to have a lot of Twitter users bashing it’s good name might do well to solve the problem before it leaves Twitter. However, the last thing a company needs for its reputation is one who supposedly represents the company arguing with a group of Twitterers about whether or not they were correct in their opinion about said company. Opinions are out there, and always will be – while a company cannot correct every false one, they can make efforts to put the right one in as many places on the Internet as possible - and Twitter is one large group of people to which it makes sense to get the word out.
Twitter is a valuable tool for friends, families and aquaintences to utilize in order to keep in touch and up to date, as well as it can be for businesses. We should never forget that there are plenty of opportunities elsewhere that have been proven to be effective, but where appropriate, Twitter can be used effectively. Just don’t push those boundries too far, or Twitter may eventually suffer the same fate as SM sites before it’s time. The target audience for your business marketing efforts on Twitter is made up of users, not other companies, so if companies abuse the Twitter service like many have been abused before, users are likely to switch to the next big micro-blogging site, and leave the companies to re-tweet themselves.
As the writer of the aforementioned article states: “…the key is in showing restraint in the initial months so that one does not ‘burn out’ on the experience.”
The Social Media Rundown: Where To Start And Where To Go
There’s no doubt, the Social Media is alive and well. Everyone from the independent musician to the corporate giants utilize the Social Media to accomplish otherwise difficult or impossible marketing strategies, and it looks like this aspect of the Internet marketing world is here to stay, at least for awhile.
When engaging in a campaign that targets and utilizes the Social Media, it is important not to jump the gun. As quickly as a brand or name can be rocketed to the top, it can be crushed before it ever gets a foot out the door. For this reason, preparation can be the difference between success and defeat. In the same regard, it’s not just about what you do or how you do it, but what order you decide to accomplish each leg of the journey to Social Media Marketing success. Here are some tips:
- Cover Your Bases- A lot of people have the tendency to jump into every Social Media site they can find and try to make friends, send messages, join groups, etc. The problem with this approach is that the best impression should be your first impression. If you plan to have any lasting standing with the people you encounter on these sites, you need to have something to offer. Depending on your niche, it may be handy advice, a free download, or maybe even a how-to guide. It really comes down to the people who would be interested in you or your business, and what they can get from the connection. Take the time to set up your own site, populate it with rich, valueable content, and make sure your best foot is forward. You wouldn’t show to a wedding wearing half of your tux or dress – don’t show up to the Social Media party unprepared!
- Choose your Friends Wisely – There are a lot of tools available online that one can utilize to track what people are saying about them. Sites like Twitter are a lot easier to track, when they’re all about the talk, but you will never know what is being said before it is said, posted and set in “stone”. Blogs are a large part of the Social media, and everyone has one these days. If you upset the wrong person, they can ruin you, easily. After that, you may have a world of Reputation Management in front of you, but it’s better not to let it get to that point. Be courteous on the sites you join, and be responsive to those who are interested in what you do or have to offer. It’s important to filter out users that it wont benefit you to interact with, and it’s equally important to keep up the communication with those that will.
- You Have To Earn Trust- Every business starts somewhere, and generally, an up-and-coming business, large or small, earns their reputation and much of their clientele from word of mouth, but more specifically, from providing good service and/or products. Likewise, your “image” on the web will have a lot to do with you. If you want your name to be recognized and associated with good opinions, interact in kind. In time, users will stumble on your name and know it because their friend told them about you, or because they saw it on another site. Whatever the case, the best way to brand is by doing what you do, not necessarily better than anyone else, just better than most people would expect. This leaves quite the impression and can make a Social Media effort much easier. SMO is not meant to replace all other forms of advertising, branding and customer relations – it is simply a catalyst for more leads, exposure and ultimately, sales.
- Put In The Time- It may be a no brain-er, but what you get out of your Social Media campaign is what goes in, and time is no exception. For many, time is a luxury, one which that many cannot afford to dedicate enough of to a self-propelled SMO campaign. For a lot of businesses, hiring an Internet Marketing Firm is the way to go, since not only will this save the business the time that goes into it, but these are trained professionals that have experience and knowledge to get the job done right.
Search Engine Marketing As A Team, Not Separate Players
Search Engine Marketing may not be a science, but it can be viewed as the sum of it’s contributors, and their effect on your online marketing success. Too often, people view all of the separate Internet Marketing efforts in their own light, and fail to bring all factors into one whole focus. When it comes to maximizing your ROI, it may be tricky to determine whether a paid search campaign would benefit over a one geared towards natural search, or whether it would be better to analyze the competition than it would be to focus on expanding your own network. Whatever the case may be, the answer will likely be to test all the water.
It’s no secret that a Pay Per Click campaign can have an effect on of of natural search, and such an effect might benefit or hurt the other, but more than likely, your business will see better oportunities when its Internet Marketing efforts branch out.
The Social Media offers a network of users, and therefore potential customers or clients, that have already presented information about themselves and their interests that traditional advertisors would pay big money for. Targeting users on the Internet is easier than ever – which only means that more people are doing it – and it is therefore that much more important to expand efforts into all online marketing areas.
However, this does necessarily mean it will do you much good to pick 3 of these areas and run with them. Marketing your business online is as much about prior knowledge as it is about gathered information, which means that slow and steady will often win the race.
Let’s compare two businesses like the tortoise and the hare.
The first business wraps its efforts around a search and content driven PPC campaign, a natural search effort, the Social Media spectrum, and safeguards itself with reputation management, all the while gathering information about it’s top competitors. After a few months, they will see which effort is paying off the most, and focus primarily on that. However, they can utilize the others to support their main campaign, and during this time, they can see how various strategies affect eachother, and optimize accordingly. Additionally, their presence in the Social Media has established a brand for them, so when users see their ads, or their name in natural search results, they are more likely to visit their site.
The second business decides to pour its budget into a PPC campaign, and gathers information about their competitors. Seeing how their competition bids has given them the advantage to take that number one spot on sponsored search results, but they lack the online presence. Their click-through rate on ads is decent, but once on the site, users will generally decide to check out the other results before making a decision. Their bounce rate is high and visitor loyalty is rather low, since more than often, users will find the first business and recognize their name.
This model is just one scenario, but it illustrates the need to exapand efforts. The tortoise and the hare is a well-known story for a good reason – there is truth to the concept of taking one’s time, thinking things through, and making informed decisions.
Search Engine Optimization Basics
In the Internet marketing world, we manage a lot of clients, but every client is different and each account requires specific techniques in order to maximize their ROI. In many cases, this means running a number of campaigns using methods in Pay Per Click, Search Engine and Social Media Optimization, Competitive Intelligence, and so on. Still, for some clients (and their budget), just an SEO campaign can greatly increase their presence on the Internet, and is perhaps one of the strongest ways to market a website.
It is reported that Google changed their algorithm once a day on average during the past year. There are a lot of reasons for each of those changes, but all of those changes were made (and will continue to be made) for one reason – to match search queries with the most relevant content. While the history of SEO has had its dark moments, and its share of misconceptions and rumors, the current state of SEO is always changing and therefore, the methods we use to improve a websites visibility in search results must adapt. Search Engine Optimization is both a science and an art, and although it has become a bigger challenge over the years, the goal for everyone is to provide users with the best content for their searches.
The general idea behind SEO is not to “trick” search engines into believing your site is better than others, and it’s not necessary about getting that number one spot at the top of search results. And SEO’s aim should never be general rank, but appropriate on-site optimization and a network of relevant links. There is a difference between link building and SEO, and I must clarify that although proper link building can be an invaluable part of SEO, simply linking to a website from wherever can not only be useless, but get your site penalized. SEO has not only evolved, it has developed a sense of right and wrong, and you do not want to get on its bad side.
It is always better to play it safe with your on-site structure, which is what search engines will look at when they follow those links to your site. Keyword stuffing, metatags, and link farms are a thing of the past, and can only do your website harm. SEO is not about presenting your site as something it is not, it’s about giving the search engines what they want, to which your site will be rewarded with targeted traffic.
Remember, focusing on pagerank is a pitfall for many. A lot of people assume that a page with a rank of 7 will be given priority over a page with a rank of 5, but this is not always the case. The algorithms that search engines use to determine ranking are based on a nearly infinite number of factors, including onsite content, external linking, keyword ranking, etc. Each factor has its own factors, and those factors have factors as well. At the end of the day, no one Internet Marketing firm can guarantee specific results because no one knows exactly how search engines will read them each day.
One thing we all know for sure is that these search engines are all aiming for the same goal – to provide relevant returns for the keywords that users are searching on, so the one method that we know will always be consistant is to keep things clean, manage a good site, and to never stop improving.
How Social Media Optimization Really Helps With Natural Search
I was showing a friend of mine some SEO basics the other day when Social Media Optimization became the topic of conversation. He was asking me how SMO really can help with natural search results in ways that Search Engine Optimization cannot, and in explaining this concept to him, I found myself repeating the same word over and over: Networking.
When it comes to optimization, a lot of us get carried away with the technical aspects of the trade. The truth is, many of us could debate the effectiveness of particular natural search marketing strategies all day long, but what it comes down to is your website’s worth on the Net, how the search engines view that worth, and respectively, when and where your site will be displayed in results. No matter what strategy you or your firm implements, and no matter what keywords best describe your business or service, I think one focus should always remain center stage, and that is the networking aspect of SMO.
Consider your businesses presence on the web. Is your name, brand or logo seen around the Internet, perhaps on various respectable sites, or are potential customers / clients seeing these things for the first time when they land on the the first page of your site (or whichever site their search brought them to)? The same applies to your particular services or products, and so on. The point here being, what are you doing to reach people, and not just making it easier for them to reach you?
When it comes to the world of Social Media Optimization, I believe networking is not only the right thing to do (since that is what these sites are for), but also a large part of the puzzle, and here’s why:
- Consider results from sites like Myspace, Digg, Flickr!, etc. These are just a few of the Social Media sites available to the public, and for free. Within these results, I often see links that lead to personal profiles and pages. Have these people performed any sort of optimization for their profiles or pages? Probably not – and yet, they are showing up for searches, often times near the top of the first page. Why? Because they actively participate in the community – they network.
- Going back to the idea of reaching your target market, and not just making it easier for them to reach you – what will a dormant profile on any Social Media site accomplish? Nothing. Interacting with the community regularly (not spamming!) shows interest in the community, and usually, this means that the community will take an interest in you. There’s a word for this sort of interaction…ah yes, networking.
- Are image searches going to help bring targeted traffic to your site? Probably not – so how else are you going to get your brand and logo out there? Traditional marketing statistics show that branding has effectively brought many companies [additional] success over the years, and there is no reason why this concept should be ignored when it comes to Internet marketing, and it should be incorporated with an SMO campaign. Using your logo as a profile picture can get that image out there to a lot of people. Of course, the logo itself should be well designed and pleasant to look at – perhaps even entice a user to click on it for a closer view (and therefore view your profile). Bottom line – unless you have an active PPC campaign displaying image ads, or a lot of popular friends in your niche that will display your logo (and a link to you) on their site, there are very few other ways to have any control over who sees your brand or logo. Once again – networking is key to get this image out there and seen by the masses.
As has become commonplace for me, I must state that spamming, automated interaction (that is a program designed to visit and add friends, post comments, etc on other users’ profiles/pages), or anything of the like are extremely frowned upon, and furthermore, are not effective strategies. It boggles my mind that between all my blogs I receive about 20-40 spam comments a day.
The aforementioned is not supposed to be a step-by-step, nor a DIY on Social Media Optimization, but rather a polite suggestion to those that practice SMO. It may seem pointless to put the extra effort into a SMO campaign, but from experience, I have found simple interaction and contribution to these communities to be very satisfying, and often do help to achieve SMO goals.
Social Media Is Here To Stay
Like it or not, sites like Digg, Facebook, Flickr! and the such will be around for awhile. As the wise man at the hot dog stand would say: “Get ‘em while they’re hot!” Statistics show increasing numbers in social media, which means larger audiences, better resources, and no signs of these highly active sites dwindling. Of course, all this information is useless if you lack the networking skills.
One might argue that social media sites have a characteristic to not last over a period of time. This is true, however, as the short history of SM has shown us, when one site falls another will rise, and with greater numbers. One of the greatest examples of this is Friendster > Myspace > Facebook. I should probably clarify that all three of these sites are still around and functional for members to use, however, looking at the history, one can see a wave which once peaked at Friendster, then Myspace, and is now peaking with Facebook.
One might also argue that social media sites are only beneficial for personal use, not for businesses. Most SM sites do generally target personal users, but there is really only one quality needed for social media optimization - networking. Businesses are made up of people, and people network all the time. Someone from your business can take it upon themself to share their knowledge with a given community, and as a result, spread the word. Forget what anyone has to say directory listings – quality link building is the foundation for SEO, and networking on an SM site can accomplish this naturally. I should point out, however, that many sites frown upon the use of their sites as link-building tools, so ethically speaking, you should only utilize these sites if you plan on interacting with the community as any other user would, and linking only to pages on your site that are relavant to topics of discussion.
Some would say that it would be a hassle to maintain multiple social media profiles just to build a few links. Why spend all those hours making and optimizing profiles when you can buy links? The key is targeted traffic. Buying links is not only unethical, but there is no guarantee as to the quality of these links. It may seem like a good deal to get a bunch of links at a low price, but it’s just a waste of money. A few links from a few good blogs will do far more for your natural search than an infinite number of random links from irrelavant sites containing nothing but links. And part of having blogs post about your site is networking with them.
One aspect of social media that one would never argue is the fact that it’s free. Sure, certain sites will offer a “premium membership” for a small monthly or yearly fee, but this will rarely, if ever, be any more useful for SMO than the basic free membership. This makes SMO a powerful tool not only because millions upon millions of people will be using it based soley on the fact that it is free, but because it costs you nothing more than the time you put into it, or if you don’t have the time to put into it, the fees you would pay your Internet marketing firm to utilize it.
Search Engine Optimization is Not a Science
When people ask me what I do for a living, the inevitable followup questions will generally lead to long explainations that leave the inquery unsatisfied. Basically, my first response is “Internet Marking”, which leads they that inquire to further do so with a question along the lines of:
“What does that entail?”, to which I respond, “Pay Per Click, Social Media Optimization and SEO.” To this they ask, “What is SEO?” and I tell them “Search Engine Optimization.”
Even to someone who is computer and Internet savvy, when I try to explain the specifics, they will usually just nod and smile, but everything goes right over their head. This isn’t because they aren’t intelligent or able to grasp the concept of quality link building, but more due to the fact that SEO can’t really be taught to someone in a college course or a weekend seminar, let alone within the twenty minutes on average that these conversations will tend to last.
Like many Search Engine Optimizers, I was given direction during the course of my training, and the rest was self-learned. Sure, the advice of learned others will always benifit those that learn, and instruction can provide foundation, but SEO is always changing, because the “rules by which we must play” are always changing. SEO is not so much a science, but more a type of branding.
Just as a brand is an idea communicated to the target market which associates a name, slogan or idea with your company (and hopefully results in leads, conversions and sales), SEO is the branding of search engines. We use creatively implemented tools to leave an impression on bots that crawl the web, and encourage them to tell the rest of the world about our client’s product or service when they search for related terms.
So yes, while the results of Search Engine Optimization are the sum of links pointing to a site, as well as the quality, quantity and variance of those links, the idea is not so simple in practice. To do this job right, an SEO must be an architect of the Web, constructing a functional, yet appealing structure that serves a purpose and leaves an impression on our target audience, via search engines.
To learn more about branding your company name using highly effective SEO practices, please consult an Internet Marketing Firm like Reciprocal Consulting.
Blogs Can Be Your Savior Or Your Demise
I’ve discussed before how a relatively well-ranking blog can destroy your reputation by showing up in searches for your company’s name, but consider the alternative – a network of bloggers that increases your targeted traffic by 300% in one day. I wasn’t so sure this was possible, but I experienced this first-hand.
While comparing an eCommerce or strictly informational site to a personal one may not be the most suitable example, the principles are the same. As far as Social media Optimization and SEO are concerned, quality, varied, and extensive links can build your rank for certain keywords, and your page rank overall. As usual, I have to offer my disclaimer for the use of the term “page rank” as I am not referring to the little green bar that appears in your Google toolbar, or the number assigned by various spy sites. This is the number which you will never really know the value of unless you have a very good friend who works in the right office at Google. Don’t worry about it – Search Engine Marketing is based upon the focus on generating keyword links, not a popularity contest.
However, when it comes to onsite content, and well targetted keywords in the right niche, one post or update can win over an entire blogging community, as was the case for me just a few days ago. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – it is a good idea to setup a blog for your company (or have an Internet marketing firm like Reciprocal Consulting do it for you). This is why…
I decided to embark on a project a little bit different from my usual pixel-based bead art. Don’t laugh, it’s perfectly normal for a 27-year-old man to make real-life pixel art using kid’s craft beads. Moving on, this new project of mine was a musical album, or rather a preview of an album in progress. For 6 or so months now, I’ve been posting to my own personal, self-hosted, Wordpress blog. During that time, I’ve done quite a bit of SMO for the domain, and I’ve managed to rank in the top ten for most of my keywords, number one for many of them. Still, I’ve never seen more than a few dozen views in a given day. In fact, just last week, I topped out at 79 visits. I suppose I thought this was decent for a personal blog.
Leave it to a guy who blogs for Wired.com, and in one day I managed to get over 1,800 visits to my site that day. Basically, I posted the links to my free album preview on December 2nd, the day that I got my 79 views, and the next day, this guy saw it, posted about it at Midnight on the 4th, and referred to me 75% of my views that day. But that’s not the end.
For the next few days, I received anywhere between 182 and 437 visits, which climbed to over 3,600 on the fourth day. Apparently, the word was spreading.
The day after that, my servers were overloaded and I didn’t know why. My bandwidth was well under the limit. 20,714 views, in one day…that’s how. I couldn’t even post to my blog, there were so many people visiting – who puts their personal blog on a dedicated server? I didn’t, and I sure didn’t think I had to, either.
The point of all this is that many companies overlook the value of the Social Media as a tool to their advantage. Most of the time, an investment in Internet Marketing can be a calculated effort, which results in relatively expected results – not that there is nothing wrong with this. However, I believe that many businesses could benefit from investing in Social Media. An average campaign for Pay Per Click Optimization for one of our clients will drive a few thousand hits a day to their site, but receiving two weeks worth of targetted traffic in one day (without paying two weeks worth of clicks) can do wonders for your ROI. I wouldn’t by any means recommend giving up the PPC campaign, but using as many channels as possible is the best way to make the most out of marketing on the Internet.
Using Flickr! for SEO Just Got Difficult
I’ve been using Flickr! personally for the past few years in order to share my artwork through groups, individuals, and the handy RSS feed included in the basic Flickr! account membership. Although I am a member on many other Social Media sites aimed towards artists of different sorts, including deviantART, Myspace (music), and ETSY (although more of an eBay for crafts), Flickr! has thus far been the best catalyst for self-promotion of my work.
The beauty of a Flickr! account is that each photograph is basically treated by search engines as a separate web page, the main difference being the extension used. In the spirit of the structure of an search-engine-readable page, each image submitted to Flickr! contains a name and a description (which may contain links), much like a web page contains a header, title and body, which may include links. The reason for this special treatment is to make Flickr! submissions search-able in both image and web searches, as a means to encourage online sharing of photos.
Thus far, I personally have gotten a lot of attention and a bit of publicity by using Flickr! as a sort of gallery for my artwork. Likewise, many businesses have found Flickr! to be an invaluable means for Social media Optimization, or SMO. Unfortunately, as of recently, Flickr! has been cracking down and doing some searching of their own – for strictly business accounts using Flickr! for SEO.
Although only time will tell where the hard-working staff at Flickr! will draw the line between personal and business accounts, here are a few things to consider if you don’t want to find your Flickr! account deleted:
- Interact with the Community. Normally, I would say that it is better not to draw attention to an optimization based account or profile on any of these sites, since it may draw attention to the fact that you are not a personal user – however, in this particular case, it seems to me that a complete lack of interaction (via messages, comments, etc) would be a red flag to the ‘cleaning crew’ and may more likely result in account deletion than sticking out like a sore thumb (as long as that sore thumb appears to look like a natural human kindly interacting with other members).
- Use Links Sparingly. This may seem obvious, but when you split up 80 links between 80 photos, you may not immediately realize how many there are in total. While I personally do not get a lot of traffic to my personal blog through Flickr!, many businesses use it for that purpose. Be conscious of how many links you are throwing to the same URL – you should only place a few links here and there, and make sure the surrounding text is relevant but not ’selling’ anything.
- Post More Pictures. This does not mean you should post a ton of pointless pictures, but if you were only uploading pictures of products and linking each one to a product page on an eCommerce site, this would draw attention to the ‘misuse’ of the account, and blatant violation of Flickr! user policy. The key is to post pictures of many different things, all somehow relevant, but not all blatant image adverts. The more you mix it up, the more natural and ‘random’ it will appear to both human and bot browsers of your photostream.
These are a few things that I personally will be trying out to avoid getting my account deleted, but I would think that businesses would have to exercise more caution than personal users.
For more information on effective Social Media and Search Engine Optimization services, please consult an Internet Marketing Firm like Reciprocal Consulting.
Directory Listings Meet the Social Media
There’s a good reason why the Internet is referred to as the World Wide Web; there are many strands of information meeting other strand at various junctions, and it is all too easy to get hung up on it. Okay, that’s some pretty corny humor at the end of that statement, but true nonetheless. Discerning a quality piece of information from one with an ulterior motive can be tricky, which is where interacting with others via the social media end of the spectrum can be to your advantage.
Some businesses will view comments, reviews, and opinions on various sites as potential damage to their reputation, but to many, they play a large part in the decisions they make for shopping, using services, and so on. The same goes for services that utilize directory listings, which provide those that prefer to do thorough research with an invaluable source of information.
However, many directory listing sites are comparable to scams, which sell irrelevant listings for the majority of their profit, and sell ad space to supplement the rest. There are also a lot of blogs with a similar purpose, which are often classified as ”made for Adsense”, since they are created not to provide valuable information, but to make money.
So where does Social Media fall into the scheme? Utilizing these sites can be a good way to make friends who know the ins and outs of the industry; both your particular industry and the Internet marketing industry. By creating profiles on these sites, finding contacts who share your field of interest, and joining communities focused on your niche, you not only amplify your Social Media Optimization efforts, but you also gain the opportunity to match minds with others like yourself, who invariably are not in the market to get rich quick, but to share quality information, and possibly some quality links to your site.
Moving focus back to the directory listings, consider the difficulty of truly knowing the difference between the good and the bad; it sure would be nice to have a second opinion, wouldn’t it? There are tips one could follow in order to better understand what makes a listing untrustworthy, such as ludicrus requirements like reciprocal links, an increase in visibility with higher costs, 100% guarantees, etc. Still, the best source of information comes from others with experience in the field.
Understanding the marketing world on the Internet can be hard, but there is help. An Internet Marketing Firm such as Reciprocal Consulting is a good place to start.
Self Hosted Blog or Website?
In case you’ve been dying to know the answer to this question, the answer is both.
A personalized, custom built Website gives a business many freedoms concerning structure, content, and additional applications, such as shopping carts, forms, dynamic flash interfaces, and more, plus a very fresh, from-scratch, start. While many of these things may be available on a self hosted Blog, there is a difference between having a recognizable format and having one that may very well cause a user to bounce from your page. Self hosted Blogs, while capable of hosting many things that a website can, have an expected format, and should be used primarily for content. Content refers to onsite, html readable text, and links. This includes headers, footers, side bars, body text, posts, etc.
Now, what is the meaning behind this question, and more importantly, why the need for both?
The simple answer:
Blogs are becoming increasingly popular, to the point of absurdity. Every other person who is active on the internet these days has at least one blog to which they contribute, and many have two or three. Still, some have more even than that! So why join the crowd?
First of all, all the well tuned on and off site optimization in the world will not turn leads into conversions. For your sites ROI (return on investment) goals, more than likely there is a thank you page, order confirmation page, or some similar page which contains a tracking code. This is how you tally conversions, and when pitted against clicks, impressions, or monthly budget (depending on your campaign), you can measure ROI. There is a key factor between the initial lead and the conversion: Your Website
I’ve discussed how your optimized keywords and on site content need to relate to eachother, but these things should also be related to the design and structure of your website. If a lead comes to your site expecting to find a list of available products, easy to use shopping cart and easy checkout, more than likely, they will not find this on a Blog.
Another example, on the flip side, is content. While your site’s page content is crucial to optimization, suppose there is a good deal more information pertaining to your business that you wish to share with your potential clients or customers. Having all this information on a website that is also being used for checkout and browsing may bog things down for the user because, as I mentioned earlier, the quicker and easier it is for them to order and pay, the better the chance they will do just that. Adding a link on your site to a Blog about your company and it’s products, as well as news about upcoming products or services, is the best way to share large amounts of information without interfering with their shopping or browsing experience.
Additionally, having “sister sites” which link to eachother, one of which being a Blog containing feeds, news, links from Social Media Blog profiles, and lots of key content, is a good way to increase relevance and page rank, as well as targeted traffic. You can link relevant posts in the Blog to product pages on your site (and to other relevant posts within the Blog itself), give the user more opportunities to contact you with questions, and provide more than enough information that may already answer their inqueries.
There is a good deal of optimization that goes into a successful Blog (be it Sponsored Ads or Natural Search), but the beauty is, traffic coming to one site will lead to the other, and there is a clean, concise, well designed format which makes it easier for your leads to convert to sales.
Maintaining Social Media Profiles
While Social Media Optimization may take a backseat to Search Engine Optimization, it requires an equal level of persistance to achieve your desired results. Just like SEO, SMO is an ongoing process, one which will not show immediate results. One of the biggest misconceptions concerning both SEO and SMO is that there is a definitive goal in mind. Sure, we aim to raise page ranks, and we certainly work towards getting sites to the top of search results for their niche and corresponsing keywords, but it doesn’t end when those goals are achieved, it must continue to be successful. Here’s why:
- Web crawlers gather a lot of information. This includes times, dates, and other facts about your site that are relevant to your sites statistics, not just inlinks and on-site content.
- Dates apply to rankings. The longer your site goes without new links pointing towards your site, the less relevant your site becomes to the current date and time.
- Rank is measured not just by the volume of links. A bunch of links from a few of the same sites will not do much good, as this points to only a few sites that consider your site relevant. Continually getting links means a greater chance of getting more links from a greater number of different sites.
Now, how does this apply to your Social Media profiles? Optimizing these profiles is the same process as optimizing your site, with one catch: You are optimizing more than one site.
I find that often times, clients of our Internet Marketing Firm are generally less interested in SMO than they are in SEO because it seems like a waste of time and money to them, but consider this: Inlinks from higher ranking sites will do more for your site than inlinks from lower ranking sites, correct? Therefore, properly maintaining and linking to a Social Media profile that links to your page, which raises it’s own page rank is helping your site by raising it’s page rank!
For more information on improving your website rank and importance, or for any other Internet Marketing inqueries, please don’t hesitate to contact one of us from Reciprocal Consulting.
Why Social Media Optimization?
There are many ways to optimize your website through SEO and PPC, but even if your website is showing up at the top of search results, there are at least nine more ranking spots that could be pointing to you. So why bother joining the world of Social Media Optimization when you have the number one spot in search results?
- An added online presence through SMO says more about your dedication to the internet community, which in turn shows that you care more about reaching your customers.
- Depending on which SMO sites you utilize, you can reach potential customers outside of direct search results. If someone is searching Google for your niche they will be sure to find you. However, if they belong to a forum, online community or message board dedicated to that niche, they may not bother searching Google and, furthermore, anyone who finds you on those sites is guaranteed to show interest in your business and will subsequently be more likely to become a customer.
- When coupled with SEO, SMO can push your profiles, posts and contributions to various SMO communities to search results beneath your website. This is an additional protection that falls under Reputation Management, but it is just one way to protect your name.
- Having a presence on multiple SMO sites can generate more links to your website, which adds a layer of security to your top spot on searches.
Basically, Social Media Optimization is an extension of SEO that reaches a large number of more accurately targeted potential customers.
There are many things to consider before setting up an SMO campaign. Everything from which sites you utilize to what your avatar on your various profiles will be, these things all have an impact on your image. Also, choosing keywords wisely can become the difference between an excellent campaign and an ineffective one.
If you’d like to set up a Social Media Optimization campaign for your business, Reciprocal Consulting can help.
Expanding the SEO Skillset
There was a time when Search Engine Optimization was all about three main practices: meta tag stuffing, title tag stuffing and keyword stuffing. Sensing a theme, are we? During the early development of SEO, these tactics coupled with a bit of hard coding were pretty much all that was necessary to pull decent rank and all fell into the general category of “Search Engine Optimization” as they composed the majority of the knowledge needed to do such. Build a search-friendly site and show up on searches; it was as easy as that.
However, more and more over the past few years, these once primary strategies for optimization have been thrown into the “onsite SEO” category for a new era of SEO. There has been much discussion of a new brand of SEO Specialists, cooler, slicker and more capable — having better “Networking” and “Social Media” skillz.
Yes, “Skillz” with a “Z” for the newer, cooler SEO specialists.
Unarguably, things are very different now. Sure, the number of tools and variety of skills required to launch and maintain a successful SEO Campaign have grown at an alarming rate in just the past year, let alone the previous decade, but too many are quick to dismiss the old practices for flashy theatrics — as if having years of experience was a bad thing?
Consider the following bit of “geek-related” history:
In the early 90’s there began a war. This was not a normal war however, and many were unaware of its existence. This was a video game console war between Nintendo and Sega. Essentially, these companies were in competition to be the leading Home Video Game Console System and each company had a distinctive advertising campaign. Nintendo took the straight forward approach, simply marketing their products for what they were, while Sega marketed their systems as being the cooler, optimal alternative to Nintendo — perhaps their strategy can be best summed up with a quote from one of their commercials: “Sega does what NintenDONT”.
So what’s my point? It’s simple. Sega, with all it’s glamor, flash and big words, died in 2006 with it’s final system, the Dreamcast, and prior to that, the company released some of the worst systems of all time. Meanwhile, Nintendo is still alive and strong, and its products are among the top searched items on Ebay today. Even in competition with such beasts as Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo maintains comparable results and an even higher demand.
Okay, so what’s my real point? Think of it like this: In this parable I’ve presented to you, Nintendo represents the traditional SEO Specialist — simple, solid, effective and of high quality, yet able to adapt and leave a lasting impression on the internet. Sega, on the other hand, represents this new brand of SEO Specialists — presented as more socially capable and better equipped to utilize the new era of Social Media oriented SEO Campaign Management.
I predict a very similar outcome for this bout.
The fact is, SEO has evolved over the years and, while many aspects have changed, it is important to remember to utilize traditional means as well as newer tools. A successful SEO campaign is all about managing a balance of incoming links and sources, networking with other sites sharing similar interests and building a search-friendly page tailored to the campaign’s keywords and targeting goals. One can perform Social Media Oriented SEO for a website all day long but without an appropriate architecture on-site, all this will be in vain.
Be careful when entrusting your online advertising efforts to a firm and before you sign on, ask yourself these questions: Are they a reputable firm? Do they have solid experience as the foundation for their strategy or are they built on outrageous claims and ineffective, over the top practices in less than the complete range of strategies? Can they work with me one on one to ensure than we build a custom tailored campaign? Will they charge outrageous fees or will I be paying them based on the Campaign Performance?
Believe it or not, many Internet Marketing Firms want to answer these question and concerns.