Developing backlinks

Developing backlinks for your own site through sources listed below : 

1. Directory Submissions.

2. Article Submissions.

3. Press Releases.

4. Social Bookmarking.

5. Forums.

6. Blog Commenting.

7. Profile Creations.

When backlinks are created through the above 7 methods, not only you get high quality backlinks but,

you also get targeted traffic to your site from these reffered websites under each category.

In the eyes of search engines links through the above 7 methods are genuine and natural so

before you start developing links from various other methods see that you have already 

gone through these methods of developing links to avoid spam in the eyes of search engine.

Note: All the 7 methods should be done in parallel rather than serial.

Step 2 of OFF-Page Optimization: Directory Submissions

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Directory Submissions : Directory websites are like yellow pages, herein, you have a set of websites for different services.

Directory submissions bring quality links as websites are categorised here. It also brings targeted traffic. 

Ideally 5 directory submissions is recommended daily for quality link building. Here is the list of highly rated

high PR directory 5000+ in the excel file, start your link building from top to bottom.

You have to sign up in each of the directory before you can actually place links in them

do store the login id and password of each of this directory as y-o-y we will be using it again and again.

Do not submit the same page in a single directory more than once

however you can submit multiple ( different) pages to the same directory.

Note - Always give the category name related to your web content because this is where all your competitor’s

 websites are also listed which adds to the quality of the website's backlink.

The backlinks developed do not show for your website immediately as you start building but takes an indefinite period 

of time right from a day to 3 months all depending upon when the google robots visit to the site from where you get the backlinks.

Step 3 of OFF-Page Optimization: Article Submissions

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Article websites are used to submit a small story (generally of 200-300 words) regarding your website/webpage. 

These article sites in this way indirectly create pages within their site on various topic and the users are benefited

 as they get free - quality one-way backlink and of course, a dedicated page in their site that could too perform well in search engines to give us referred traffic.

Generally, most of the article websites accept the html code in the site description

 this is where we place our backlink code.

It is advisable not to post the same article in more than one site and make 

sure you just do not blindly copy paste your own page information and paste in article sites

this can create an impression of 'spam' in the eyes of google and it can ban your site sooner.

For better ranking of your posted article page in search engine see that you maintain the keyword density

 and include the same in the title and author of the article site if at all they have.

 It is advisable to post atleast 5 articles daily to add the link juice of your website.

 Generally it takes 1-7 days to get the backlinks from article sites.

You can add upto 2 backlinks per article for optimizing the work.

25 Free SEO Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox

Here are 25 free search engine optimization add-ons that you can add to Firefox. (Note: although all of these tools are available free of charge, some tools do have a suggested donation to cover development costs.)

1. SEO Doctor–Allows you to see how any website you visit is optimized in terms of SEO. It offers easy diagnosis of SEO problems and even offers solutions for common problems.
2. SeoQuake SEO Extension–Extension allows users to obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of the internet project under study on the fly, save them for future work, compare them with the results, obtained for other, competitive, projects.
3. SenSEO–Analyzes web pages and tells you how good they fulfill on-page Search Engine Optimization criteria.
4. Foxy SEO Tool–Toolbar that lets you access many well-known search engine tools like Google Site, Yahoo! Site Explorer, Live Fromlinks. It also includes well-known web traffic analysis sites like Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, as well as popular statistic aggregators like Quarkbase and WebSiteOutlook. Use this tool to check a site’s listing in many important directories.
5. SEO Workers Web Page SEO Analysis Tool –Lets you to perform a basic analysis of the page in your browser with a single click. The results from the SEO Workers Analysis Tool are structured into useful groups.
6. SEO Toolbar–This toolbar is fully customizable. There are several different views available, including icons and text, icons only or page ranks only (PageRank, Alexa Rank and PI Rank).
7. SEO Professional Toolbar–Offers many SEO-related tools in one place. Display PageRank, S-Rank and the number of backlinks for visited pages. This toolbar also stores the history of ranks for selected sites. Highlight words, links, view number of words and more.
8. SEOpen–Includes tools for Google backlinks, Yahoo backlinks, PageRank checker, and http header viewer.
9. Swoosty SEO Tools–A tool that automatically shows the Google PageRank and Alexa ranking of all the sites you visit, and provides other essential tools for complete analysis. You can also activate and deactivate it without having to restart Firefox.
10. KGen (Keyword Generator)–Lets you see what keywords are predominant on the web pages that you visit.
11. SEO Stats–Provides an analysis of the popularity of your website. From Facebook to Twitter, you’ll know exactly how many links to your site are available through social networks and the number of backlinks and pages indexed in the major search engines.
12. SEO and Site Analysis–Click on the SEO WooRank icon to generate an SEO report for your website.
13. Affilorama SEO Toolbar –Provides you with useful information and data to make domain and page analysis of domains easier.
14. Niche Watch Tool–Gives you the technical information you need to beat your online competition. This tool tracks backlinks number, indexed pages, keyword occurrences on the page, page rank, all in anchor, all in title, and all in text rank.
15. Search Status–Shows helpful information like the Google PageRank of a page and its Alexa rank. It also includes Compete ranking and the SEOmoz Linkscape moz rank for a page. This tool also displays a fast keyword density analyzer, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, and Alexa information.
16. SEOHand–Keeps a record of a site’s placement on Google and Yahoo for any given keyword. Watch Google PageRank (PR), Backlinks, Saturation over time. The data is presented in graph and table format.
17. SEO Status Page Rank/Alexa Toolbar–See Google Pagerank (PR) and Alexa rank for each website you visit.
18. SEO Live YS Rank–Live search rank at the status bar, top searched keywords and search volume data for a specific site. Great for search marketing, keywords research and SEO.
19. SmartPage Rank Toolbar–Includes the Alexa Rank and Page Rank. The usage of this toolbar will increase the Alexa Rank of the websites you visit.
20. The KPRMS Toolbar–Website ranking and keyword monitoring service for Google, Yahoo and Bing. (As of this publication, this add-on has not been rated.)
21. Money Quake–Displays your real-time earning statistics from most popular advertisement systems (like AdSense etc).
22. SEO Info–Provides some information on the site you visit: indexed pages, backlinks, link report, pages reported on social network, pagerank, alexa rank, whois, and much more. (As of this publication, this add-on has not been rated.)
23. SEO Status–Shows Google PR and Yandex TYC in status bar. Information can be load automatically or by click. Also highlights rel=nofollow and noindex tags.
24. SEO Tools–Collection of useful search engine optimization tools.
25. SEO Monitor –Information for SEO monitor users displayed in status bar.

We’ve shared 25 search engine optimization add-ons to help your freelancing business succeed. Now it’s time to discuss why freelancers should be aware of SEO techniques.

3 Off-Page SEO Techniques Killed By Google Panda

3 Off-Page SEO Techniques Killed By Google Panda

Everybody knows that Google Panda has rolled out, of-course it increased the user’s experience but literally messed up those search ranking manipulators. I also tried these things in March-April and these techniques was working very well, like One can easily rank any keyword in just 15-20 days with those tactics. But, now scenario has changed, Google has advanced its algorithm and slapped those grey practices for artificial link building. So.. which were those link building techniques? I am pointing out those techniques and explaining below. have a happy read!

1. DoFollow Blog Commenting

Dofollow blog comments was one of the easiest and most popular techniques to build backlinks in those days. If some one is smart enough to understand how Google respond to those dofollow backlinks discovery than It was quite easy to rank well. The only thing mattered was Daily Link Building number, Consistency and Strategies for Anchor Text (Targeted Keyword variants. If someone come up with proper mix of this variables than It was very easy to rank. But Now Google, started to see the place from which the link is coming ! So those all dofollow comments are messed up because Google can see that link is coming below 50% of the full-page means it likely in comments or footer. Even link from sidebar is also carry less weight than before. So Bad Time!!

2. Link Exchange

Link Exchange was another good way to rank high on search engines. Because when you exchange link on homepage with any website, It will create hundreds of backlink from that website (Link on). So, If you are good at Anchor text Metrics than your site is likely to perform well in search engine ranking. But Again those links used to be in Sidebar or Footer, so Google has caught this techniques also.

3. Indirect Layer [Sort of Link Wheel]

It was another practice of Indirect layer when we used to create some blogs pointing to the main website and other blogs in that layer. And we used to create hundreds of backlinks to those blogs which are in indirect layer and ultimately those blogs passes link juice to main site. So our main site didn’t look spammy in Google Eye, but Again this strategy is Busted!!

Note: All those website created from these techniques are performing well now also, the only thing required in that case is visitors engagement. Like If you ranked for such website, where it’s bounce rate is low and page view per visits is high then Google Panda is effected positively to those sites. But, If you will use those techniques now on new site then you are wasting your time.

Basic On Page Ranking Factors

On Page SEO Tutorial Part 1: Basic On Page Ranking Factors

On-page Optimisation                               
It is now time to start optimising
your web pages. By this stage you
should have a good idea about the
keywords you wish your site to rank
f or and some knowledge of who
your main competitors are. This unit
will show you how to use this
inf ormation when constructing web
pages.
By the end of this unit, you should
be able to:
optimize the page title of HTML
pages
optimize the Meta tags of
HTML pages
optimize your page headings
write keyword f ocused page

Google Analytics Tool

Google Analytics Tool

-------------------------------

This tool gives us the statistics of the traffic for our website, with the help of this tool, 

you can know the details of the traffic such as:

1. Source of the traffic (Search engines, Reference sites, Direct)

2. Keywords in search engine that bought the visitors to our site.

3. Region of traffic.

4. Browsers from which the traffic has come.

5. Avg. time spent by the visitor in our site.

6. Avg. number of pages visited by the visitors.

7. Search Engines from where the traffic has come.

Etc...

The google analytics tool is present at the address www.google.com/analytics.

You can add as many sites as possible with just 1 google analytics account.

Adding your website in google analytics

----------------------------------------------------

Sign up then login, in the login area click on ' add a profile ' , then give your website address, 

click on 'finish', 

copy the tracking code shown in the text box and paste in between the 

<head> and </head> tags of your website's homepage.

Get back to google analytics and click on 'save and finish'. 

This would add your site to google analytics over a short period of time.

This area is generally used to measure the statistics of the website traffic, 

the three important areas in this are:

1. Avg. Time spend by the user - should be as high as possible.

2. Avg. No. of pages visited by the user - should be as high as possible.

3. The Bounce rate - should be as low as possible.

Bounce rate is nothing but the average number on 100 visitors who have left your site

 after reading just 1 page, 

that is they did not navigate to other pages of your website.

Difference between Webmaster tools and Google analytics?

Google Webmaster tools give the statistics of SEO while Google Analytics gives the statistics 

of Traffic to your website.

Important Statistics of a website:

1. Backlinks: Backlinks are nothing but the links of your WebPages in other websites.

It can be either in the form of text links or images.

The syntax of backlinks is as follows: 

<a href="WEBSITE_URL">KEYWORD</a>

The website Url can be the home page or any page of your site and 

The keyword should always be your own keyword of your webpage, 

for which you want the top ranking in search engines.

Example:

The number of backlinks of your website denotes the number of WebPages 

where your website (or webpage) address link is mentioned.

More the number of backlinks better it is for SEO. 

Infact 90% of SEO is dependent on Backlinks.

Backlinks are of two types:

Do follow: These are the backlinks in which there is direct reference to your site.

No follow: These are the backlinks where there is no direct reference to your site, 

in other words the Url is encrypted here.

Both the backlinks are equal in value and have same importance in SEO but, 

do understand that by default search engines links are NO FOLLOW links that bring zero value in SEO,

 that is why the search engine backlinks are not counted at all.

To know whether a link is do-follow or no-follow just scroll the mouse over the link and see the status bar,

 if you find your webpage Url then it is do-follow link, if it is encrypted then it is no-follow link.

Try to acquire as many do follow links as possible for your website.

Each Backlink has got variable values.

1. Backlinks from high PR (Page Rank) websites have very high value.

2. Backlinks from your competitors websites have very high value.

3. Backlinks from low 'external links' websites have very high value.

4. Virgin Backlinks have very high value.

5. Backlinks from different domains have higher value than backlinks from the same domain.

6. The backlinks from .gov, .edu, .mil and .org websites have higher value.

Note: In backlinks, quantity does not matter, what matters is the quality.

To check backlinks for any website you can visit the URL:

www.backlinkwatch.com

Acquiring backlinks is the most difficult and the most important part of SEO.

It is said by great SEO Experts that for any keyword, if you have enough number of backlinks, 

even for an empty page you can get 1st rank in all the search engines.

PR (Page Rank)

---------------------

PR is the most important statistic of any website in the world, in short, 

a website can be valued by its PR.

PR or Page Rank of any site is the measure of the link juice (Total value of the Backlinks) of the site. 

It ranges from 0-10, it is said that the PR is very difficult to achieve infact, 

in world there are only 4 such sites that have a PR of 10. 

Even the 'Google' website itself does not have PR of 10. 

Google has a PR of 9.

Some important sites PR in google and sites that have got PR 10.

1. www.adobe.com

2. www.apple.com

3. www.w3.org

4. www.usa.gov

5. www.google.com

The PR / unique visitors / value of the site is shown below:

PR      avg.unique visitors   avg.value (converted in Rs.)

                   (Daily)

1            100 - 300                       Rs.20,000 - Rs. 50,000

2            300 - 1000                     Rs.50,000 - Rs. 2,00,000

3            1000 - 3000                   Rs.2,00,000 - Rs.10,00,000

4            3000 - 10000                 Rs. 10 L - Rs. 1 Cr.

5            10000 - 30000               Rs. 1 Cr - Rs. 10 Cr.

6            30000 - 1L                    Rs. 10Cr - Rs. 100 Cr.

7            1L - 1 Cr                      Rs. 100 Cr. - Rs.1000 Cr.

8            1 Cr - 100 Cr               Rs. 1000 Cr - Rs.10,000 Cr.

9            100 Cr - 1000 Cr         Rs. 10,000 Cr - Rs. 1 L Cr.

10          1000 Cr +                     Rs. 1,00,000 Cr. +

Backlinks can be acquired for free of cost and there are also paid backlinks available in the market, 

little research in the google will show you that backlinks these days have become a big business.

It is only because of this, the big companies rank faster in search engines, in matter of just few days..

So, if you have money you can quickly get in top ranking websites in any search engines 

but if you want to go by the free methods it takes time and your patience but, 

success is bound to you sometime in future.

A small example to show the value of PR and Backlink:

A virgin PR 6 backlink costs around Rs.1,00,000 / month.

PR / BACKLINKS TABLE:-

Simpler form of PR/BACKLINKS RELATION:

Simple version of the table

PR2 = 0.2 of a PR3

PR3 = 1 of a PR3

PR4 = 5 x PR3

PR5 = 25 x PR3

PR6 = 125 x PR3

PR7 = 625 x PR3

Illegal and Legal ways of getting Backlinks:

--------------------------------------------------------

Illegal and legal ways of getting backlinks, where we can fool google, where google can fool us.., 

1.2-way backlinks (Link Exchange)

2.3-way backlinks (Through Link Mediator)

These are the two methods of getting backlinks from our competitors wherein, 

both the website owners are benefited.  

 2-way links no longer work and it is said very soon even 3-way links will stop working. 

Both these methods of acquiring backlinks are illegal by search engines, 

they regard only one-way links - safe, natural and permanent in nature.

Paid and Free backlinks

------------------------------

Generally, getting backlinks is a very slow process hence,

Ranking in top position in search engine takes some time but you must have noticed few websites 

that are actually new and get top rank in matter of few days even for very competitive keywords,

 this is possible by getting backlinks by money. But, remember it is very very expensive.

Note: With 1 high PR website you can create many average pr websites.

eg. With 1 PR3 website you can create 5 PR2 websites.

You can also create high pr website that literally has no content at all..

Remember always, give as less backlinks as possible to other sites,

the more backlinks you give to others, 

it increases the external links (OBL - Out Bound Links) of your site and then the backlinks power

 will be less henceforth.

Always try to maintain the virginity of your website. It will bring a lot of value in future.

Google Analytics (GA)

Google Analytics (GA) is a free and powerful analytics tool that gives you insights to your web traffic. GA lets you analyze visitors’ behavior on your site – how did they end up on your site, how long do they spend on it, which are the top pages they visit......

Difference b/w Google Panda & Google Penguin

Difference between Google Panda and Google Penguin

The update of the Google Penguin algorithm in the last week of May has brought this algorithm into limelight. Yet many site owners are still unaware of this latest algorithm of Google. The other algorithm namely the Google Panda is much more popular than the Google Penguin. The most common query that is doing the rounds with the Penguin update is the difference between the two. While Google Panda has been in the scene earlier than Penguin, yet both these algorithms are responsible in bringing down faulty websites from their search engine rankings. The main difference lies in the characteristics that they work upon. Below is a brief description of the two algorithms which will help in getting a clear picture of them.

Google Panda

Google Panda algorithm mainly targets websites with low quality content. Content farms were hit the hardest by this algorithm. Even sites with duplicate content from other sites were penalized by Google. The overall ranking of the websites depends on all the pages of the website. If all the pages have poor quality content then the whole site will get penalized for it. The Google Panda algorithm has also promoted quality websites which had been lower in the search engine rankings. The last update was in 19^th April 2012.

Google Penguin

Launched on 24^th April, 2012, this algorithm mainly concentrates on the webspam. The websites which do not follow the quality guidelines of Google are penalized and demoted in the search engine rankings. Black hat techniques like keyword stuffing are looked down upon by this algorithm. Some of the points which should be kept in mind by the webmasters to avoid being penalized are listed below:

1. Comment spamming in blogs using exactly matching anchor text for targeted keywords.
2. Unnatural inbound links
3. Exact match anchor text in outbound links coming from poor quality sites.
4. Low quality directory listing and article marketing

So those who have suffered traffic losses and a decrease in their search engine ranking in the recent times should find out the main reason and work on that to restore their original position.

Facebook Marketing Tips

Use Facebook to Enhance Your Online Business Presence

Proper networking is mandatory for your online business to flourish. If you are looking into growing your business and achieve success you ought to know that the internet offers great potential for creating leads and developing relationship with people who could prove to be useful in growing your business. Using social media sites like Face book, Twitter etc in order to promote your business is one of the most effective internet marketing strategy

One of the easiest and best ways to grow your business is Face book, which if you use wisely and correctly can help you to reach out to your current as well as future customers. No matter you are an owner of a small business or is engaged in a large venture, the utility of Face book as a business promotion tool cannot be denied. With more than 500 million users, Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms, for growing your business.

In order to grow your business using Facebook you need to follow the below mentioned techniques.

1. Developing a Fan Page - The first thing you need to do in order to grow your business on Facebook is to create a fan page. This will build your customer base, increase your visibility and grow your business. You can post a series of photos or a video to demonstrate your product and at the same time allow your customers to go the same way.
2. Offer discounts and loyalty cards to your fans - Surveys have proved that customers would usually continue following your business page in case some kind of discounts, loyalty cards, valuable coupons are offered to them.
3. Conduct a survey or a contest - You can conduct surveys in order to know about the opinion of your customers regarding the kind of offers they wish to have. This would give them a sense of belongingness and would search for you in the newsfeeds.
4. Create exciting, informative and contentious content - In order to grow your fan base you can generate content in form of videos, articles, press releases which your fans might find valuable as well as interesting. This would go viral as your fans would share this with their friends.
5. Link back to your fans - Promote and link back to those who get well with your business. This would create your image as a giving member; at the same time develop trust and credibility thereby increasing your fan base.

The Facebook pages not just have the potential to grow your business exponentially in a short span of time but also increases your income considerably. You have the opportunity to gather hundreds of reliable clients and make your business get recognized, through out these pages and your account.

30 Most Asked SEO Interview Questions & Answers

here is the list of 30 latest & frequently asked technical SEO interview questions and answers for the candidates who are willing to grab a new job in SEO field in the very first attempt.

1. Which are the most important area to include your keywords? – Page title and Body text are the most important areas where we can include keywords for the SEO purpose.
2. What are webmaster tools? – Webmaster tools is a free service by Google from where we can get free Indexing data, backlinks information, crawl errors, search queries, CTR, website malware errors and submit the XML sitemap.
3. What is the best way to maximize the frequency of crawling of your website by search engines? – Frequently adding new, original and quality content on the website.
4. Do you know who is Danny Sullivan? – He is a Journalist who covers the field of web search, considered as search engine guru and editor at searchengineland.com
5. Who is Matt Cutts? – He is the head of web spam team at Google. Read more about Matt Cutts here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/
6. What is the best criterion to identify the value of a backlink? – The authority of the domain, quality of the content on the page where the backlink is provided and then the page rank of the website.
7. What is keyword proximity? – Keyword Proximity is a measurement criteria of the closeness of the keywords within the Page Title, Meta Description and Body Text.
8. What is keyword prominence? – Keyword prominence is the location of the keywords in the page title, meta description and body text
9. Difference between exit rate and bounce rate? – Bounce rate is the percentage of people who leaves a particular website just after visiting a single page on this and exit rate refers to the percentage of people who leaves from a particular page….
10.  What is the Panda update and which is its current version? – Panda is a search algorithm update by the Google to take on the content farms, low quality websites and the websites getting low quality backlinks, Google removed a lot of the webpage from the higher search index during this update and the current version of Panda is 2.5.3 updated on October 19/20th Oct. 2011
11. What was caffeine update? – Caffeine update was rolled out by Google in June 2010 and the main purpose of this update was to include more fresh results in the search index, at least 50
12. A customer can give you an access to only one tool, which one will you choose, Webmasters or Analytics? – Of Course Webmaster tools, because these are almost the essential tools for the search engine optimization, we can have some analytics data in the webmasters as well. But now due to the inclusion of webmaster data in Analytics, we would like to have access to Analytics.
13. What is 404? – It is a server error code which is returned by the server what a particular webpage or the file is missing from the webhost server.
14. What is 301 redirect? – It is a SEO friendly version of permanent redirect for the webpages or the domains.
15. What is 302 redirect? – It is a temporary redirect.
16. What is robots.txt? – Robots.txt is a text file used to give instructions to the search engine crawlers about the caching and indexing of a webpage, domain, directory or a file of a website.
17. What are the other methods to restrict a webpage from the search index? – we can use noindex meta tag
18. What are Google Webmaster Tools crawl errors? – Crawl errors provides the information about the URL’s of your website which are not accessible but linked from somewhere.
19. What is a landing page? – a landing page is a page in the website which is designed to attract the visitors to contact/subscribe/buy a service or the product by reading few lines of important information about that particular service or the product on that page.
20. What is the recent change in Google Analytics? – Real time visitors info, visitors flow, webmaster tools SEO data and website speed data.
21. How to handle the duplicate page in the website? – using canonical tag.
22. What are the types of CSS and which is better for SEO? – 3 types, Internal CSS, inline CSS and external CSS.. The external CSS is best for SEO purpose. Read why to use external CSS
23. How many heading tags are there in HTML? – 6 tags, from H1 to H6
24. Can we use more than one H1 on a single webpage? – Of course, if there is a need of describing two related topics on the same page then we can use, but using more than 2 or 3 will not provide any credit to the search engines.  Matt Cutts advise on using more than one H1 tag http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIn5qJKU8VM
25. Italic or Bold, which is more useful? – Both are almost same but Italic have a slight more better for keyword targeting on the webpage.
26. What are top SEO ranking factors? – Quality of content on the webpage, quality and quantity of backlinks to the webpage, anchor text used in the backlinks, domain authority, social sharing metrics and some other traffic metrics like page CTR, bounce rate and average time on the webpage.
27. What is the criteria for removing a webpage from Google search index? – It should return a 404 not found error or it should be 301 permanently redirected.
28. Some basic and quick steps to increase the webpage speed. – removing the unused code and scripts. Replacing internal and inline CSS with the external CSS. Using web server’s page compression methods. Using small sized images or minimizing the no. of images.
29. What is CTR? – It is Click Through Rate.
30.  What is CTA? – It is Call to Action.

Social Media and Search Optimization Integration

Like it or not gone are the days when marketing a web site was straightforward. Complete some Organic Search Engine Optimization, push it along with some Pay per Click advertising and in most cases the web site would experience an increase in targeted web site traffic.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay per Click (PPC) are still important elements of a Holistic approach to web site promotion. However, with the steadily increasing popularity of Social Media Marketing the addition of Social Media Optimization (SMO) is an absolute necessity, not only to increase targeted web site traffic but Internet users have come to expect some form of Social interaction on web sites. To disappoint a web site visitor is the best way to lose a web site visitor.

Social Media Optimization (SMO) Defined 

 

Wikipedia defines Social Media Optimization as "The methodization of social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to web site content."
Although I agree with this definition to some extent with regards to the use of Micro Blogging and Social Networks to drive targeted traffic to the web site, this definition does not take into account the necessity of various Social Media Tools within the web site's development structure to provide a social environment once the visitor has arrived at the web site through the use of Social Networks.
An alternative definition may be: The methodization of social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to web site content and continuing the social interaction within the web site environment through the use of Social Media Tools to assist with the sharing of ideas and content.

 

The SMO Process

There are of course numerous ways that Social Media Optimization may proceed with consideration to the above definition. A typical scenario may be something like:

1. The company's web site incorporates a Blog into the web site structure to facilitate the sharing of information and points of view with their targeted audience.
2. A Blog post is written on a topic of interest to both the Company and the target audience.
3. A representative of the company who belongs to various Social Networks creates discussions or micro blogs on the topic of interest which attracts visitors to the web site.
4. Visitors arrive at the site, read the Blog Post, and would like to share their point of view on the topic, they will submit a comment for additional discussion.
5. Comments encourage additional dialogue between visitor to visitor and visitor to company.
6. Web site visitors consider the content worth sharing and may use methods such as Social BookMarking (Digg, Delicious etc) or sharing on Social Networks such as Facebook and Linkedin or Micro Blogging such as Twitter.

As you can see from the above scenario the Wikipedia Definition of Social Media lacks the required web site support of the Social Media Optimization process. 

Web Site Social Media Optimization

 

Clearly there are some Social Media Tools which are required within the company's web site to support the Social Media Marketing Program. The Social Media Tools I consider to be an absolute minimum include.

 Blogs: Blogging for business is an essential Social Media activity. Not only does a Blog support Social Media initiatives, Blogging has considerable Search Engine Optimization benefits which enhance the web site's ability to improve search engine visibility and increase inbound linking opportunities.

Social Book Marking: Providing tools to enable web site visitors to book mark your content offers businesses a powerful tool to empower web site visitors to share content within their social circle. Social Book Marking is clearly an extension of word of mouth referral, and can increase web site traffic considerably should a particular content item be well received by the Social Book Marking and Recommendation web sites such as; Digg and in particular Stumbleupon which has recently increased the social sharing aspect of Social Book Marking.

Social Network Sharing: Without doubt Social Media Marketing is primarily carried out on the numerous Social Networks such as; "Bharatstudent",Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin and although not a Social Networking web site the recent addition to the Social Media mix Google Buzz cannot be ignored.
To further improve your Social Media Marketing Program it is necessary to include methods to facilitate the sharing of your web site content by visitors to their Social Network. The personal recommendation of a specific article or Blog post has a significant impact on spreading the word about your company's views and products which of course increases your business's online visibility.

 

Social Media Optimization supports Search Engine Optimization

 

One aspect which is often overlooked within a Holistic approach to web site development and promotion is the interaction and supporting nature of web site elements and promotional activities. The relationship between Social Media Optimization (SMO) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is no different.
Increasingly a web site's SEO initiatives are supported and enhanced by the Social Media Program. With the recent introduction of Real Time and Social Search SMO has become even more important to increasing a web site's visibility in the Search Engine Results Pages.

There are a number of factors which come into play at this point such as:

Blogging: The Real Time aspect of the Search Engine Algorithm favors fresh content which is supported by regular blogging.

Micro Blogging: The Social Search aspect of the Search Engine Algorithm focuses on numerous elements related to your Social Networking activities. Twitter and Real Time Search is a crucial element in the Social Search equation due to agreements between Twitter and all the major Search Engines to show Tweets in select search results.

Social Networks and Book Marking: The relation of inbound links and Search Engine visibility is common knowledge. Profiles within Social Networks and Social Book Marking web sites are excellent methods to improve the number of back links to a web site.

Search Engine Optimization supports Social Media Optimization 

 

The introduction of Real Time and Social Search has increased the need to consider what keyword phrases are used within Social Media Marketing Programs and also how these terms are integrated into the Social Media content.

Keyword Research: The one thing that has not changed within the Search Algorithms is the fact the Search Engine's use of keywords and how they are incorporated into content to determine the relevancy of a particular Tweet or Blog Post to an Internet user's search query.

Therefore, the development of a Keyword Research Program has become necessary not purely as part of a SEO program but now should be integrated into a SMO program to ensure Blog Posts, Tweets and discussions include keywords which are most commonly associated with specific topics by Internet users.

Keyword Integration: How keywords and phrases are used within your Blog Posts, Micro Blogs and Discussions will have an impact on the visibility and attention a particular content item will receive.
Supporting your keywords with words and phrases relevant to the primary keyword is extremely important to convincing a Search Engine your content item is relevant to Internet users search queries. In addition to this requirement when developing Blog content it is still necessary to utilize some SEO basics such as; including your keywords and phrases in titles and descriptions and to use the H1, H2 and H3 HTML tags to identify the important keywords within your content.

 

 The Last Word

There is absolutely nothing within the web site development and promotional environment that is stand alone. All elements need and support other elements and strategies. SEO and SMO are no different and if you have not been integrating these two methodologies in the past the introduction of Real Time and Social Search requires that to succeed in the fiercely competitive Internet environment SEO and SMO be developed as a unified approach in the future.

7 Highly Effective Viral Marketing Techniques

I was watching the tv show Biography recently, and the celebrity being profiled was none other than Ted Williams. No, not Ted Williams the famous hall of fame baseball player and arguably the greatest hitter of all time.

Biography, (which has profiled famous celebrities from Barack Obama to Michael Jackson to the Beatles) was profiling the story of Ted Williams, the homeless "man with the golden voice" who was discovered on a street corner in Columbus, Ohio in January, 2011 - thanks to a YouTube video that went spectacularly viral, receiving over 13 million views before being removed at the request of the Columbus Dispatch newspaper due to copyright infringement.

What is Viral Marketing?

Think about that for a second. From homeless to being featured on Biography in only six short months. Such is the amazing power of viral marketing. So, what exactly is viral marketing?

In essence, viral marketing is word-of-mouth advertising. Or, to be more specific, Internet word-of-mouth advertising. And, as you know, word of mouth advertising is the most powerful method of advertising there is, bar none - online or offline.

Viral marketing exists in many forms including articles, videos, e-books, software, reports, interactive flash games, white papers, text messages - even tweets.

The term "viral marketing" was first used in 1997 to explain the extraordinary growth of Hotmail, which accumulated over 8 million users in an astonishing 18 months. Hotmail was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for an estimated $400 million.

And what exactly was Hotmail's viral marketing success secret? Actually, it wasn't a secret at all. It was a clickable, single line of text in the footer of each and every e-mail that was sent from a Hotmail account that read:

"Sent from my free Hotmail account. Get your own free web-based email account Here!"

Word-of-Mouth Advertising

We've all recommended products and services we liked or were satisfied with to family, friends and acquaintances. And we know how powerful and persuasive favorable movie reviews and restaurant reviews can be - because millions of us decide what movie to see or what restaurant to eat at based on the reviews.

Well, social media has made word-of-mouth advertising even more potent. According to a study by Performics, people on social media networks enthusiastically recommend companies and buy products they follow. Among active Twitter users who follow at least one company, 59 percent are more likely to recommend a company they follow, and 58 percent are more likely to buy a product they follow.

In addition, 60 percent are at least somewhat likely to take action when a friend posts something about a product/service, company or brand.

And opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising with 70 percent trusting consumer opinions posted online, according to the latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries. Those numbers simply cannot and should not be ignored.

How to Implement a Viral Marketing Strategy

I've been fortunate enough to have several of my articles go viral. In fact, a couple of my articles were so popular, at one time they were among the top 5k tweets on Twitter - out of 50 million daily tweets, according to Twitter's analytics team. So, I've experienced first-hand the amazing power of viral marketing.

In order for a something to become viral - meaning, spread rapidly like a virus, it has to be something that can easily be sent to others with little effort. The aforementioned Hotmail text link is a perfect example of something requiring little effort to pass along. Recipients merely had to click on a link. It doesn't get any easier than that.

It should also be something that "stands out" from the rest of the content on the Internet. Ted Williams' amazing story is a perfect example of something that stood out and captured the hearts and imagination of millions of YouTube viewers.

Finally, it should have some sort of perceived value - not necessarily a monetary value per se. But it should have some sort of educational or entertainment value.

Following are 7 highly effective viral marketing techniques that should be part of your overall marketing strategy:

1. Videos. Upload an interesting, educational and/or entertaining video to YouTube, Metacafe and other video-share sites that captures the imagination of viewers, and anything is possible. Case in Point: Ted Williams. Need I sday more? Speaking of videos, I'm currently in the process of converting some of my "How to" titles into videos...more on that later.

To learn how you can use videos to market your business even if you don't have a camera, I highly recommend you read Tracy Matthewman's excellent tutorial,

2. Social Media. Although Hotmail achieved viral marketing success before the advent of social media, it's hard to imagine a business having that same level of success today without participating in social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. Simply put, social media marketing, if executed properly, can put your viral marketing efforts on steroids!

3. Article Marketing. If you write articles and allow them to be syndicated, it's not out of the realm of possibility that one or more of your articles could go viral - provided, of course, they are well-written, interesting, educational and/or entertaining, and offer good value.

I receive articles in my e-mail box all the time from friends and colleagues who think the content is something I might be interested in reading. More often than not, they're right. After you write your articles, you can significantly increase the reach of your content by converting them into videos, using conversion software such as ArticleVideoRobot.com and Article2Video.com. As I mentioned earlier, I'm currently in the process of converting some of my "How to" titles into videos.

If you don't write well, or don't enjoy writing, reputable and professional article writing services like Nicole Beckett's PremierContentSource.com, can write articles for you at a reasonable cost.

4. Tweet Button. The Tweet Button is pretty much everywhere these days. This useful widget allows users to post a tweet to their Twitter profile from any website. Here's how it works: Tweets posted using the Tweet Button are pre-populated with a shortened link to the webpage from which the message was sent (for example, your website). Users have the option of customizing the tweet's content before posting it. This is an excellent way to give visitors to your site the ability to spread your content via Twitter. You can get a tweet button at the following link: http://twitter.com/goodies/tweetbutton

5. Share Widget. Share widgets give your visitors the ability to easily share and bookmark your website through popular social network websites. You can get a share widget from ShareThis.com.

6. E-Books. E-Books have long been one of the most effective methods of viral marketing, because they're easy to produce and have the ability to reach a large audience. If your e-book contains content that is interesting, entertaining and/or educational, and offers good value, readers will enthusiastically pass it along to others.

If writing isn't your forte, rebrandable e-books (e-books written by others) gives you the ability to accomplish the same thing. WhiteDove Books.co.uk has an excellent affiliate program already set up through ClickBank. Simply rebrand the e-books, and give them away or sell them. You will then make commission on back-end sales from your affiliate links within the books.

7. Newsletters. Newsletters are not only an excellent way to keep the name of your business in front your subscribers, they also have excellent viral potential. To take full advantage of this potential, at the end of your newsletter, ALWAYS encourage readers to pass your newsletter along to others. You'd be surprised how many actually will - if you simply prompt them to do so. You can create a newsletter quickly, easily and inexpensively through services like ConstantContact.com and VerticalResponse.com

SEO Analysis Framework Of On-Site Factors

We have developed a simple framework which can be used to analyse websites' on-site optimisation. We have called this framework the "On-site SEO analysis framework". The goal behind this framework is to give a structure for analysing a website's on-page optimisation for search engines. As a result, you can use this framework to analyse how good your own businesses website is optimised or search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Using the framework Because it can be difficult to analyse to what extent a whole website is optimised, the first part of this framework should be performed on at least 10 pages of the website. The second part of the framework, the site wide factors, should be done on the website as a whole. On-site SEO analysis framework This framework is based on the idea that each page should target one keyword or key phrase. Apply to 10 pages on the website: Yes/No Is the keyword or key phrase included in: Title tag (preferably near the beginning) The URL page name (keywords separated with a hypen) H1 tag The body text of the page at least 3 times ALT tags on images at least once Bold H2, H3 tags where relevant The meta description tag The meta keyword tag Are synonyms of keywords/key-phrase used on page Other factors: Depth of URL not deeper more than 4 Well written page (Few spelling mistakes, slang etc.) Page size smaller than 150kb No evidence of keyword stuffing Page name doesn't end in 0 (read this for an explanation) Out-bound links to websites relevant to the keyword and the website’s neighbourhood Essential check: Are all of the above done relevantly? Is this page a valuable resource for users visiting the page for the keyword it has been optimised for? Apply to the whole website: Site-wide factors: Good domain name Clean and accessible code Content not duplicated Well internally linked Sitemap When you perform your analysis using this framework, if you have any "no"s marked in the table above, you should consider addressing them. Having a "yes" in every column means that your website is optimised to its potential.