Category Archives Social Media and SEO

An interesting article courtesy of SEO Chat about a new recommendation engine from Google:

Google Hotpot represents the search engine’s latest attempt to mix search with social networking. If you’re looking for new places to try, and you have a lot of friends online, it could help you make some new discoveries. Let’s take a look at how it works.

Google Hotpot is tied into Google Places. If you want to use it, it helps if you have a Google profile (but it doesn’t need to be public). You definitely need a Google account, which you already have if you have Gmail. You can get to Hotpot by following the link.

Once you’re signed in, Hotpot gives you a public nickname, just as a way to help keep track of your reviews; you can change it if you want. Click through the opening screen, and you get a page with a search box at the top, with the word “restaurant” already entered. I performed the search, and was greeted by restaurants in my local area, which I was asked to rate.

These restaurants were not listed in the usual way you see search results listed. They appeared in rectangular boxes, about three and a half inches long and two inches wide on my laptop’s screen. At the top of each listing, you can click a star that says “Save for later,” which will presumably let you rate it later, or an X that says “Not interested,” which will presumably remove it from the listing.

Below these two options you’ll find the name of the restaurant, with a link. The link takes you to the Google Maps listing of the place. If you’ve never seen one of these (and if you haven’t, what rock have you been living under?), it includes the address, phone number, fax number, a map that shows how to get there, a list of categories for the place, its specialties, reviews from around the web, reviews from Google users, and a whole lot more. If you like to do research on a company before you patronize them, it’s not a bad place to start.

But back to the Hotpot listing. Below the name of the restaurant, you’ll usually find a picture (sometimes they’re “camera shy”) of either the exterior of the restaurant or a sample dish. Below this image you’ll find some indication of where the restaurant is located; this can be either the town name or something more specific, like the intersection. Below that, you’ll find a brief description of the cuisine, such as “Traditional American” or “Ribs.” That latter was applied to a local Outback Steakhouse, though, so it’s not always perfect.

Here is part 2 on Article Marketing from Search Marketing Standard:

The Article

Patience may be a virtue but generally not when it comes to internet users. In the age of instant access, reams and reams of text can be off-putting. Although longer pages of content are suited to websites for search engine optimization purposes, for article marketing shorter chunks of text are often the most successful. Unless the piece you are penning is a detailed review or white paper, keep the article body short – around 300-400 words.

Keep in mind that there are thousands upon thousands of new articles added each day to the web’s article marketing directories, so the first thing you’ll need to do is create a title that sells the article without being too witty. Plays on words are not suited to article marketing as they can make the article difficult to find by users searching on specific keywords.

As with any text, the first paragraph must grab the attention of the reader. With a short attention span and competition from so many other articles, a ‘hook’ can grip the reader and ensure they read to the end of the piece. A hook can be something as simple as a question that gets the reader thinking, a statement that makes them curious to know more, an outlandish claim that you can prove to be true / false in the body of the text or a shocking statistic. Tricks such as these are used by the most successful writers to engage the interest of the reader right at the start and will ensure that your audience sticks with you rather than hitting the back button and returning to the article directory to find something more interesting to read.

Putting the most salient points at the start of the article will ensure that interest levels are retained and convey the essence of the piece to those who are pushed for time and can’t read the whole thing in one go.

The formatting of your article is also important as you want to encourage an enjoyable and useful experience. That way, your article is more likely to get picked up and republished on other sites, helping to build more links and giving further exposure to your business and services. Correct formatting can give the popularity of an article a push by presenting a professional image and allowing readers to scan through the page quickly. Not all article marketing directories have advanced content formatting systems available to posters, so stick to basic formatting rather than trying to incorporate lots of images, colors and fonts. Simple techniques such as using bold or italic formatting for mini headers or picking out key phrases in bold will be sufficient.

Most article directory sites will also limit the number of hyperlinks allowed in the text, so include one on your most important keyword and then a second to your web address in the ‘About the Author’ section. Anyone wanting to read more or find out more can then do so directly.

The Bio

When you first register with an article marketing directory you’ll often be asked to fill in a profile including an ‘About the Author’ section. Don’t be tempted to skip over this as your author profile helps to establish credibility. Keep it short and sweet – number of years experience in the field, job role, industry accreditations and a link to your web site for more information will suffice.

Here are some great article marketing tips from Search Marketing Standard:

The popularity of article marketing has waned a little in recent years as most businesses have been swept up in the social media craze. Rather than write an article about a product or industry, it’s been easier and cooler to tweet, like, or blog. Although this has devalued article marketing in the eyes of many, it is still a very useful skill to have in your online marketing toolbox and one that will allow you to reach an audience outside of Facebook and Twitter.

Getting Started

Article marketing can be done in two ways. The first is to submit one article to as many different article marketing sites as possible. Simply going to Google and typing in article directory will bring up thousands of sites happy to accept your content. Although time consuming, creating accounts with each site and then copying and pasting the article will result in a number of links proportionate to the number of submissions made. This gives links with targeted anchor text at a very low cost.

The second option is to be more selective and post your article to just one or two sites. With both options, you’ll also want to publish your article on your own website as a means of adding fresh new content and providing more data for search engine indexing purposes.

One of the two options is likely to be unsuitable for your site and determining which path you should go down is the first step to successful article marketing. If you have a new website or a site that, while older, has not had any SEO work or link building carried out, option two is the most appropriate course of action. It is tempting to zoom off on route one, but while you’re gathering links you’ll also be creating your own duplicate content issue when you publish the article on your site. With little search engine history, Google is more likely to see the article directory as the authority site, meaning you won’t enjoy the on-page benefits of your own content.  For new sites, writing two versions of the article – one for article marketing and one for the website itself – is often the best solution.

Bulk acquisition of links via widespread article submission is more suited to older sites which already have a large haul of quality inbound links back to the domain. In that situation, article marketing is a fantastic way to shore up the link count while also increasing website profile.

Searchenginewatch.com recently posted an interesting article about businesses being able to claim their “space” on Twitter, the popular social media site.  Will this new feature help businesses maintain and receive new customers or will it flop?  Check it out:

“Businesses may soon be able to claim their location on Twitter Places. If (or when) the service goes live, it will provide a permanent URL for specific locations, along with a list of people who have recently tweeted from that location and their tweets, Mashable reported.

Only one place has been claimed so far: Twitter HQ (by @twitter):

Twitter’s official statement: “Claiming Twitter Places is not available at this time. We’re experimenting with a variety [sic] features. Allowing businesses to claim a Place is a natural thing to consider for the future.”

Twitter launched Places, which lets you tag your tweets with specific places, in June.

As TechCrunch noted, “Since the launch of Places five months ago, Twitter hasn’t done much in the geolocation space. Meanwhile, rivals Facebook and Google have been moving fast to build up and own their own Place databases. … Google, Facebook, and Foursquare all allow venue-owners to claim their places. And those that do get (or will get) analytics about their venues on those services.”

Many people become confused when confronted with social media terms they are not familiar with, such as “microblogging”, “RSS Wiki” or “RSS Feed”.  For many individuals and businesses these terms can seem overwhelming and intimidating. Here we will discuss some basic terms and their definitions, and hopefully it will help you understand them more clearly.

The term “microblogging” is used to describe form of blogging where users provide brief updates and publish them on their social media platform. Often updates to other social profiles are published, as well as links, replies and mentions to other microbloggers. The most popular microblogging site is Twitter; however other sites such as Pownce, Tumbler, Jaiku are also increasing in popularity.

“RSS” is another popular social media term that many are unfamiliar with. RSS is a syndication format which allows websites and blogs to distribute their updated, dynamic content to users as feeds. Rather than constantly visiting the website, users can sign up for a specific feed provided by the website or blog. A RSS reader or aggregator such as Google Reader is needed in order to access the feed.

Wiki’s are collaborative websites which allow users to contribute and edit the website content. Wikipedia is the most well known wiki, however other wiki’s such as wetpaint are becoming increasingly popular.

Photo Sharing sites such as Flickr, Picasa and Shutterfly allow users to upload their photos and pictures and retrieve a URL to share with whomever the user chooses. Many social networking sites such as Facebook allow users to share photos as well.

Video Sharing is similar to photo sharing, as users can create and upload videos to sites such as Youtube, Vimeo and Blip TV. Other site users can watch the videos, comment on them, and share them through other social media platforms. Many video sharing sites will even allow users to embed the videos on their own websites and blogs.

Podcasts are digital audio recordings which are distributed through the Internet for playback on a user’s computer or portable devices such as MP3 players. Podcasts are commonly used by businesses to educate listeners similar to a radio show; however podcasts are not always live.

While businesses and online marketing agencies are now aware of the potential for engaging with consumers through Social Media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and YouTube, many are yet to discover a way to really monetize efforts made in the area. The key for businesses is to find their market and develop the right strategy to enhance overall conversion rates.

The positive aspects of using social media for marketing are sometimes counterbalanced by the negatives. While we have a captive audience, keen for information and ready for engagement, we also have an audience who, for the most part, is highly skeptical of being marketed to in anything other than the most discreet and unpressured manner imaginable.

While Twitter feeds and Facebook pages are considered worthwhile, and sufficiently unobtrusive, ways to engage with consumers for many businesses, for others they are simply too costly in time and effort to invest in when they are not seeing any clear monetary gain.

Traditional advertising

Whichever tactic produces a measurable positive ROI will be the one which businesses keep coming back to, and the ability to track traditional advertising models is attractive.

Banner ads remain popular on any social platform which allows them. The difference with more popular social media-based ads is a certain level of creativity and interaction, reflecting the nature of social media itself. Users expect higher and higher levels of added value in return for their clicks through to the advertiser’s site.

Businesses which are able to tailor the appeal of their ads to their users will generally see the best conversion rates.

In-stream advertising

In-stream advertising is a simple way to use the “targetability” of social media platforms. Users are increasingly wary of any advertising getting in the way of their conversations, though, and responses can be hostile.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t work. Disney and Coke have both recently tried out Twitter’s Promoted Trends, with Coke reporting that they were ‘pretty pleased’ with the results.

Facebook news feeds are one example of businesses being able to make use of the word-of-mouth aspect of social media which is so effective, integrating the brand into an overall social media structure in what can appear to be a more natural way.

Capitalizing on content

Most businesses with established online marketing strategies will regularly create content for use online. However, a lot of the content can be used again in social spaces, giving a simple and cost-effective way of creating more of a presence on social networks.

Facebook’s media page suggests reposting articles onto your page, creating a forum for real customer interaction regarding the content posted.

Search Engine Optimization is as much an art as a science. The complex algorithms of the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN are constantly changing and adapting, and we SEO specialists must change with it. One important SEO principle that never changes, however, is the importance of strong website content. Content, or copy, is the words, sentences and paragraphs you use to invite users to your site and describe the services and products you offer. Not only is strong content crucial to enticing users and leading them through the conversion process, (the action you want them to perform such as purchasing a product or signing up for a newsletter), but it also tells the search engines what your site is about. It is critical that you use clear descriptions of the products you offer and the main themes of your business in order to allow search engines to understand and place your site prominently under relevant key search terms.

One of the most important pieces of advice I can give to any site owner who wants his or her site to rank strongly on the search engines is to develop a list of key words and phrases BEFORE writing content for their website. Take some time to really think about the purpose of your site and what type of users you want to find you. Imagine that you are in their shoes looking for your site. What words would they type into a search engine? The more detailed you can get, the better. General terms like "lamps," "real estate," and "purses" apply to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of websites. It will be incredibly difficult to push your site to the top under such general terms, especially when you are competing against large retail sites that have huge budgets and dedicated SEO specialists on their staff.

You will be competing for rankings against a much smaller pool of websites and are therefore more likely to rank higher on the major search engines. Make the list of terms as long as you like initially. Once you can't think of any more phrases, go through and pick out the ones that most define your company and the products and services that you offer. Remember, always think like a potential customers. Make sure that these are terms they would actually put into a Google or Yahoo! search engine. The more technical you get, the less likely people are going to search for it. On the up side, highly technical phrases will have less competition on the search engines. As you see, it is a constant balancing act between general words that lots of people will search but relate to large number of competing websites and more complex and specific phrases that will net less people but be less competitive to place under.

The current proliferation of social media sites is the most pervasive phenomenon on the Internet today. Not since the dot.com explosion has the there been an Internet trend that is so widespread in its popularity. The comparison with the dot.com growth is in fact one that is made by many industry observers, and while there are a number of clear similarities, there are also some important differences. It is expected that by early 2009, all the various social media sites will have more than 1 billion members. That number is predicted to grow until 2010, with a leveling off on the number of new members expected by 2012. The combined revenue from these sites, which in 2007 reached almost $970 million, is estimated to balloon to a whopping $2.4 billion by 2012.
 

Membership growth in social media sites varies greatly from region to region. The Asia Pacific region accounts for the lion's share of users, with 35% of the total users expected by the end of 2007. EMEA accounts for about 28% of all users, North America follows closely with 25% percent, and the Caribbean and Latin America trails behind with 12% of all users. With the inevitable crowding of the social media site industry, many observers feel that consolidation of the market is a sure thing. This has given rise to some predications that the smaller individual social media sites will be swallowed up by the bigger players in the field. Some experts feel however that this is not necessarily the case. In particular, social media sites with a focus on special interests are expected to survive the trend towards consolidation.
 

The extensive hype and excitement currently surrounding social media sites is perhaps what inspires the comparison to the dot com boom, but in the midst of all the buzz, there is a certain degree of trepidation felt by many as well. While many investors are naturally excited about the potential of social media sites, the fact that these types of web sites have not been proven for the long term is causing some hesitation. The promise of riding on the wave of the next big Internet phenomenon is a tempting prospect, but it is tempered by the uncertainty of social media sites as a long term sustainable industry. The most cautious industry observers have even gone so far as to suggest that most social media sites would do well to hold off on an IPO for the time being.