Search Engine Optimization

Some people sign up for Twitter, look at it once or twice, and give up in exasperation. They just do not get the premise, or the popularity of the site. This is not their fault, it is not until you fully engage will you begin to understand why it’s so popular, and also to receive some of the benefits it offers.

Link Juice

Additionally, everyone is aware that your Twitter profile URL is a nofollow link, so it doesn’t pass on any link juice. However, it is useful for attracting some nice links to your Twitter account, and your blog, and other websites you might have. Also take a look at Twitter search results whenever you are on Google, and you likely will be quite amazed at what you find there—it might even set the wheels turning as to how to rank higher for some longtail keywords.

With the crazy growth of micro blogging sites like Jaiku, and the largest, Twitter, these sites might be the next great area to look at when attempting to optimize the site better advantage. Sure, it’s great for sending messages, but it’s also superb for generating traffic for your websites. Twitter allows you to post your links in your messages. Another plus about Twitter is that the status pages are beginning to get indexed by search engines, and likely getting good page ranks on their own. For instance, as of the time of writing this post, my own personal Twitter page is ranked a PR4, and I have done nothing special to cause that sort of a page rank. I must say it was much easier to get this page to that rating than it is a blog. Some aspects of Twitter make it a better choice than Jaiku; Twitter statuses and user pages are made sub-directories, which are set up as totally different sites altogether. The SEO benefits of Twitter, however, will trickle into all of the sub-folders. Twitter allows links in tweets, so you should definitely use its PR 9 status to boost your blog post or other writing.

Tools

There are now lots of Twitter tools available that automate some of your Twitter tasks, and allow you to look at Twitter once in a while and schedule Tweets for days at a time. These tools generally will allow you to answer direct messages and also retweet interesting information that you find from those people you follow. Also, if you have more than one Twitter account, there are tools which enable you to work with all of them at one time, cutting down the time it takes you to actively engage with others on the site. Twitter user directories add benefits for your SEO efforts by giving you a dofollow link, and also helping you grow your followers list and raise your ranking in the serps. Your followers, of course, are your Twitter audience– so the bigger that list is, the better. Newer business directories are also popping up and they seem to be growing rapidly.

Tweets

People often ask what to Tweet about. Well, you can regale your followers with what you had for breakfast this morning, but you might end up with less followers if you do that. Most of your followers will likely be in your niche, or similar niches. When you Tweet, you want it to be information that can help your followers in some way. Of course, people promote their own blogs, websites, businesses and services on Twitter. However, you don’t want to blast people with a marketing message all the time. The soft sell works much better in Social Media. A good rule of thumb is one self-promoting post out of ten. That means you are giving a lot of yourself before you ask for anything in return.

Lucky for marketers, one of the best and least expensive ways to promote a business is by creating an internet presence with social media. To get the quickest return on the effort, there are certain tips to follow  which will be most effective.

First, choose the proper social network for what you are trying to accomplish. A photography business would most likely get the best response on Picasa or Facebook, and bloggers might choose a blogging system instead. The basic idea is to choose that social platform which contains your target market. Professional organizations and recruiters typically turn to LinkedIn, and there are lots of small industry segmented associations that have online forums where it is easy to interact with others that have the same interests. Likewise, you can also join Facebook groups in your areas of interest as well, since no one should ignore the 500 million users of the giant networking site or its little brother, Twitter.

Next, put together a short snippet about your services or your products that you can use to actively build your presence online and gain exposure. You will use that snippet to introduce yourself and your company on all of the sites you join for marketing purposes.

Now get busy interacting on these networking sites, participate in discussions, answer questions when you can, and take part in polls that are put up on the sites. Be sure to check out the sites daily or at least several times per week and update your posts, answer any messages or comments that have been left for you, and maybe add a link or relevant photo or article that you believe would be of interest to others on each particular site.

Build yourself a website dedicated entirely to your business and promote it shamelessly. Be absolutely certain that your website is filled with compelling and unique content so that people will come to your website to hear what you have to say about a topic.

After steady traffic is developed on the site, your users are regularly coming back to the site to see what is new, and would endorse a product or service that you offer; they might even purchase it themselves. At this point, your “conversion rate” is high, meaning a good number of people visiting your site are interested enough in you to make purchases from you. Be sure to regularly update your content to keep it fresh. Images and videos on your site help drive traffic, and also help drive your traffic to buy.

Use web 2.0 technologies along with social media to drastically improve your business quickly. Getting feedback from your readers is one of the best ways to know the reach of your website promotion. Polls, images and videos are easy ways to check out how much traffic your site is getting. Likewise, Facebook can track visitors and other statistics for you. Always read the feedback and comments, and tweak things until you’re completely satisfied.

There are basically two methods of web optimization techniques for websites. One is search engine optimization, popularly referred to as SEO and the other is social media optimization, also known as   SMO.

SMO, or social media, refers to a number of websites that run social media activity. They each have the intention of attracting massive numbers of visitors to view the content of their websites, and that content is user-generated and very dynamic. It might include news, videos, images, polls, forums and ratings. Blogging is also another emerging trends that forms a major part of social media optimization.

Both social media and SEO aim to draw users from all different areas of the world, but the primary difference is that SMO does not derives its traffic from search engines at all, but through totally other means. Consider today’s most popular social networking sites and how they function. People from all over build a personal profile and can then interact with all of their “friends” old and new, and discuss anything that they want. Often, topics of conversation are products, services, restaurants, etc. that they have experienced and will share their opinion about on their profile. Likewise, commenting on blogs is another option for optimization.

We have seen huge traffic bursts for sites, especially video and photo sharing websites, because massive amounts of people might click on a single image or video that everyone is talking about, causing it to “go viral”, which is that crazy buzz that all marketers hope for each of their submissions.

According to experts, there are several steps to be followed for an effective social media campaign. First, you should  increase the number of  links connected to the socialized website. The second step is to create tagging as much as possible, and you should also use bookmarking. Make some inbound links and also have unique contents in your pages.

Encouraging the mash up helps to carve a niche for your site on the web. Due to advances in  technology and the strong emergence of Web 2.0 tools, there are many software additions that have been developed for building up social media connections and information. Social media is one area where users are not required to validate their identity, and this freedom has drawn millions of worldwide users.

Companies that want to sell their products can first publish it on a social media site and watch for the responses that it gets. These responses can be noted by getting comments, setting up a poll, or creating an interactive feedback such as the “likes” option in Facebook.  Using this type of optimization technique helps to build your online presence and also brand your product.

Tagging

When you post photos, you are able to tag anyone who is on your friends or fans list. This can be a nice way of thanking someone for a purchase; post a photograph of the product they bought from you, if appropriate, and tag them with a thank you!  Likewise, if you have a brick and mortar business and can take photographs of your clients and customers, tag them so that Facebook alerts them that they’ve been tagged in a photo. Most Facebookers have their notifications set up to alert them anytime they are tagged in a photo, which brings them back to your page again. You can also set your page up so that your fans can upload photos and tag people in them as well, which gives your page a nice social image as well.  You are giving back to your customers by adding photographs, and keeping your company and your brand firmly planted in their mind.

Contest It

Use contests to make your page engaging to current fans and enticing to potential fans. There are lots of ways to do a contest- random drawings, trivia quizzes, 100^th fan, etc., so do make it interesting and compelling. Contests which include giveaway prizes can be exceptional marketing tools for a page.

Double up your Networks

There are lots of Facebook applications currently, and it seems a new one is launched daily, that helps to import your information from other social networking sites. With the latest applications, it’s easy to pull in Flickr, Twitter, and lots of others quickly.

Thank You! Thank You!

People love to feel appreciated, so when someone signs on to become your Facebook fan, thank him or her immediately. In fact, giving them an ebook or discount coupon as a thankful gesture would be even better, and can be huge at spreading goodwill about your brand and your Facebook page. It may even give them incentive to partake in your contests and other resources on your page, or share information about you with other friends.

Write for Grownups

Many people make the mistake of writing to the level of teenagers, because Facebook itself has certainly grown up in the last couple of years. Though it started out as the online social network for college students and even younger people, its largest demographic is not the 35-54 age group, more than 29% of all Facebook users. In fact, the fastest growing segment is the 55 and above crowd. Obviously, your company or brand has a specific target audience that your writing style should be tailored for, but be sure that it encompasses all age groups.

Keep it Up

Many people create a Facebook page and expect fans to just show up, and these people cannot understand what the big fuss is about Facebook. However, these pages need to be nurtured and fed. It is not enough to just put it up and leave it alone. Frequent updating is necessary.

Facebook pages are great places to engage customers and potential customers, even those who are not on Facebook because pages are public and therefore visible to everyone on the internet. Posting stories, articles, videos, and photos are great tools to encourage discussion and add value to the community.

Everything you do on Facebook should be aimed at keeping your fans engaged and active. Successful fan pages are seen more as a community that fans enjoy visiting than a brand.

Facebook is the largest social networking site ever, with well over 500 million users, and a whopping 70 percent of those people log on and participate daily. Additionally, Facebook’s statistics tell us that the average user is connected to 60 groups or pages at any time. Obviously, there is a lot to grab a reader’s attention, including their social activities with their friends. Certainly, to be effective in marketing via Facebook, your pages need to be engaging and dynamic for fans to return frequently and recommend them to their friends. Quick growth of your pages will come if your fans are delighted to come to your page often, and if they share information that you post. Here are a few ideas to get your pages “liked” by lots of Facebookers.

Uniqueness

Creating a profile for your business or yourself establishes your online identity, which helps develop relationships with other users and position your business while interacting  on a personal basis. Bland pages will get you nowhere. You should give a lot of thought to how your Facebook page can be different from others before you even start to create it. It needs to stand out from other pages and be unique, even if there are several pages in the same niche. What can you give your Facebook fans? How can you provide value, resources, or help? Things like this will have them joining your page and returning again and again. Be creative in designing your Facebook fan pages as well. If your company or website has a logo, use it for your fan page also. Investing some time or resources into your Facebook page will be well spent.

Compelling Landing Pages

You can customize where your users land on your pages; they do not have to end up on your wall. The wall is great for discussion, but does little to tell about your company or your brand, so it has little impact on new visitors. In fact, it’s possible to show new visitors to your page a totally diverse message from those who are already fans. Do tailor a page specifically for potential users that gives some background about you, your company, or your website. Also, try to give them a great reason for joining.

Giveaways

Die-hard fans will follow your page without any incentive. However, to really grow your Facebook presence quickly, consider a giveaway of some sort in return for “liking” your page. Giveaways will help you reach fans in your niche that otherwise wouldn’t have known about your page. There have been lots of examples of Facebook success: TGIFriday’s, Southwest Airlines, and KFC have all done giveaway promotions to build a large base of followers.

The Big Picture

Photos on Facebook are BIG! Not just in terms of size, but Facebookers love to see pictures, so be sure that your page has a nice big photo of your brand or logo as the profile picture, and add lots of others for them to view as well.

The use of social media sites, like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, have proven to be excellent resources for small businesses to use to drive niche traffic to their sites and, especially, their related blogs. Blogging, too, has proven to be a powerful way for business owners to communicate with their customers, improve their SEO, and create a presence online. Mastering Twitter can be challenging, there really are no easy shortcuts, and it is easy to mess things up. However, by following these tips, which have been gleaned by the old fashioned trial and error method, you should be able to send lots of targeted Twitter traffic to your blog.

Brand your Twitter

Many owners believe they can set up a Twitter account, and the business will come. Nothing could be further from the truth. The very first step is to change the default picture to your logo or a personal picture of yourself and effectively ‘brand’ your business on Twitter. Likewise, fill out your Twitter bio, which is a short and sweet “about” mini-page. Take things one step further and build a Twitter background that builds your business’s image. Like other online methods of marketing, Twitter can be impersonal if you do not take the time to build the necessary relationships with potential clients and customers. Therefore, you want them to feel that they are conversing with real people, and personalizing your space helps. The profile picture is likely the first thing followers look at, and if it is compelling, they may go further and look at your profile or check out your business’s blog.

Engage Consistently

In other words, be sure that you show up and actually use your Twitter account! This may seem like a no-brainer statement, but many people just do not get it. In fact, some recent studies have shown that less than 20 percent of Twitter account owners utilized their account last month, and that 60 percent don’t use it continually, month after month. Many small business owners don’t know what to Tweet about, so they show up and put up a blatantly ‘salesy’ pitch—“come to my site and buy from me.” This is exactly the wrong way to handle a Twitter account, as most people will ignore it, or worse, it will completely turn them off. Many owners think they are wasting time if they don’t get any @ responses right away, but Twitter is the type of tool that takes long range planning, daily consistent effort, and lots of persistence to pay off.

Social Proof

With Twitter, the more followers you have, the more you will get. If you follow more people, more people will naturally follow you, and so on. Now, add in the fact that you are consistently Tweeting out relevant messages in your niche, and you should quite a considerable amount of attention, which in turn will lead to even more followers. This doesn’t mean you should wait until you have 1,000 followers before you send out any Tweets. You should be consistently working on all of these things…find people and organizations in your niche to follow and Tweet about things those people would be interested in. Do not attempt to promote your business blog, however, until you have a decent following and have ‘been around the block’ a few times… in other words, you’ve had an account for a reasonable period and have tweeted quite a bit. The first thing your fingers type should NOT be an ad!

Sincerity

Be friendly and sincere in your daily interactions. Initially, it may feel that you are only talking to yourself; however, you are slowly gaining a following that will be directed to your business’s blog. Try starting each morning with a friendly hello. Find a relevant post that would be of interest to your followers and retweet it. Twitter should be mostly about giving and just a little bit about taking in order to be successful. If you hear something interesting about someone who is on Twitter, definitely @mention it so that they’ll know you gave them some exposure. Likewise, if you want to talk about something or start a conversation, #subject is the way to go. Every so often, it is okay to promote your business and yourself…but go easy, perhaps 10% of your posts at any time should be self-promoting.

Twitter newbies can be successful, and following these simple tips should help. Remember, only promote yourself or your business in one post out of every ten, retweet other’s posts, mention others, be sincere, show up every day, and tweet about relevant things that are interesting and compelling to your audience.