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SEO Blog Data Wave, Specializing in opensource content management solutions, web design, and seo marketing solutions http://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/seo-blog 2010-09-10T19:54:38Z Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Management Social Media Marketing 2009-09-04T18:53:55Z 2009-09-04T18:53:55Z http://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/seo-blog/88-social-media-marketing Daron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialist support@datawaveinc.net

<div class="plaintext" style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: small"> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">With the growth of social media technologies on the Web, more and more companies are starting to think about their presence in the social media environment. For a startup company, getting listed on the front page of Digg.com can offer instant credibility and drive additional visitor traffic. It can also significantly increase an established company's brand recognition.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Rohit Bhargava was the first person to give a name to the phenomena of interacting with the online community and bringing online traffic from social media sources. Rohit outlined <a target="_blank" href="http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html" style="COLOR: #006699">5 Rules of Social Media Optimization</a>:</p> <ol style="MARGIN-TOP: 5px; DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5px"> <li>Increase your linkability</li> <li>Make tagging and bookmarking easy</li> <li>Reward inbound links</li> <li>Help your content travel</li> <li>Incourage the mashup</li> </ol> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Further along the line, other blog activists complement these rules . The rules turned into a variety of methods referred to either as Social Media Optimization (SMO) or Social Media Marketing (SMM). Thus, writing quality content and distributing it on the Web is more about marketing than optimizing, so further investigation and improving the terminology is required.</p> <h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">What is Social Media Marketing</h3> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px"><a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_marketing" style="COLOR: #999999">Wikipedia</a> defines Social media marketing as "the process of promoting a site, business, or brand through social media channels by engaging and interacting with existing consumers or potential consumers."<br />Social media channels may include blogging systems, social bookmarking sites, photo and video sharing sites and other technologies that support social interaction on the Web.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Being an Internet-based methodology, social media marketing is tied closely to non-Internet based methodologies such as offline word of mouth advertising. The commonality between the two lies in the viral marketing approach and establishing engaging relationships with the community. <br />The difference lies in the medium in which the methods are applied: with social media marketing, word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social networks and websites.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">SMM offers methods such as creating compelling content (aka linkbait) and publishing it on your blog or a blog syndication website, posting viral videos or pictures on content-sharing sites, posting details of your event on social events sites, etc.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">In fact, social media marketing turns out to be another solution for your website promotion, which is very different from search engine marketing. The difference between SEM and SMM is the vector of efforts taken for your website promotion - SMM is more community-targeted than search engine targeted. As a result, the sources that bring traffic to your site are different. If SEM is about search engine visibility and high SE rankings that result in massive search engine traffic, SMM focuses on building online interactions with customers and helps you bring traffic from social media websites.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">A pleasant "side effect" of SMM might be getting your link popularity and SE rankings improved as well: a good viral marketing campaign within the online community creates buzz around your brand and may result in new inbound links to your site appearing on the Web.</p> <h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">Social Media Channels</h3> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">The channels used for social media marketing are as follows:<br />- blogging systems, blog search engines and blog syndication websites (<a target="_blank" href="http://wordpress.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">WordPress</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.blogger.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Blogger</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mybloglog.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">MyBlogLog</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Technorati</a>,<a target="_blank" href="http://activerain.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">ActiveRain</a>)<br />- RSS readers (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.bloglines.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Bloglines</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.newsgator.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Newsgator</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.netvibes.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Netvibes</a>)<br />- social bookmarking sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://delicious.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Delicious</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://ma.gnolia.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Ma.gnolia</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://furl.net/" style="COLOR: #006699">Furl</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://buddymarks.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Buddymarks</a>)<br />- social news sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://digg.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">Digg</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reddit.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Reddit</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.newsvine.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Newsvine</a>)<br />- social event sharing sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://upcoming.yahoo.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Upcoming</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.socializr.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Socializr)</a><br />- social recommendation sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">StumbleUpon</a>)<br />- photo and video sharing sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://flickr.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">Flickr</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://photobucket.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">Photobucket</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">YouTube</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.blinkx.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Blinkx</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.buzznet.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Buzznet</a>).</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Be aware, however, that posting or sharing your content on such sites is not enough to conduct a successful SMM campaign. The main idea of social media marketing lies in offering interesting, valuable, or useful content that is viral by nature. Only in this case, your content will soon get widely distributed all over the Web and reap returns in high visitor traffic and brand recognition.</p> <h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">What is Social Media Optimization?</h3> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Social media optimization refers to facilitating the process of finding established content, sharing it, and distributing it across numerous social media platforms.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Like search engine optimization, SMO offers on-page optimization techniques and focuses on a site or blog that already exists. In other words, you do not need to write additional content to make SMO for your site: you just optimize your pages for the social media phenomena to make them easily bookmarked, embedded on other sites, or accessed via third-party media.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">As <a target="_blank" href="http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html" style="COLOR: #006699">Rohit Bhargava</a> writes in his blog, "The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs."</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">The methods of social media optimization may include, but are not limited to, adding links to providers of social bookmarking services so these pages can be easily submitted to these providers, integrating widgets from third party social media sites using APIs, adding RSS feeds to your site to make your content sharing easier, etc.</p> <h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">Examples of exploiting social media channels on the Web</h3> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Digg.com. Digg is a user-driven content site where members can vote, bury, and comment on stories submitted by other members. Getting onto Digg's front page often results in thousands of visitors coming to your site and it can have lasting ranking effects.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Newsvine.com. This is another social news site where members can submit news stories, comment on other popular stories, or create connections with regular users. Your Newsvine user name becomes your own subdomain, so be sure to use keywords in your profile.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Del.icio.us. Del.icio.us is a Yahoo-owned social bookmarking site. Del.icio.us allows members to publicly save bookmarks using tags. Don't be afraid to tag your own content: create a public bookmark in there and use your keywords or keyword phrases when you assign tags.</p> <p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">YouTube.com. YouTube is a popular video-sharing service owned by Google. Uploading a compelling video could bring you additional traffic from both YouTube.com and the Google search engine, because Google could soon index your video.</p> <h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">What you should remember from this lesson:</h3> <ol type="1" style="MARGIN-TOP: 5px; DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5px"> <li>Do not underestimate the power of Social Media Marketing, as it can be an effective source of visitor traffic to your site.</li> <li>Participate in social media activities to increase your brand recognition.</li> <li>Apply SMO methods for your site content so the online community can easily find, share and distribute it.</li> </ol></div>

<p class="MsoNormal">Admittedly, I burn the candle at both ends... and in the middle. As I get back to focusing on the book edits, I look back at my own marketing efforts and see some things I haven't discussed much in the past. As you know, I have been pushing my own <a href="http://www.maranaphotography.com" title="Wold Class Photography Services">commercial photography</a> business, and am trying to make it grow to the point where I can be extremely selective about which clients I accept. <br /><br />So... how to do this while growing all my other businesses and still feed the family? In my world, that has become a pretty easy solution. I have been working for the "Inside Tucson Business" weekly. I've done a number of business profiles over the past few months, meeting successful business owners that are in need of my marketing services. It's really a win/win/win situation for me -- I add to my portfolio, market my services in a service environment, and get paid while I'm broadening my market. The smartest part for the paper is that they don't have a predetermined number of photos they run for each article, and they pay per photo. This means that if they like the pictures they run more.... and I get more.... So, I'm willing to spend a bit of time with the business owner that gets to see me work, gets to ask me all the smart questions, and I'm being supplemented for this process! The paper is just glad to have me on board, and encourages this type of relationship. They know the more I get out of it, the more they will. Everyone wins.<br /><br />Now, how does this relate to your business? I'm not sure -- but you can probably figure something that works well for you. How about an ice cream shop sponsoring the little league championships, giving all the players in the final game a free cone? You look like a hero, sell to the parents, and get your name on some advertising... The point is that you can do this type of multi-benefit marketing if you put your mind to it! <o:p></o:p></p>

This article was copied from an old googlerankingsdotcom archive. I copied it in case the link changes. Though some of the details have changes slightly, this is excellent advice! <br />--snip--<br />While this document will not guarantee top placement for you in any search engines, it will increase your chances to be included in the relevant results. Consider the information below to be subjective advice, and advice only, which have been assembled based on both experience and research. Please note that all search engine technologies are constantly evolving, rendering only month-old tricks to deceive their methods useless. The only way to keep your website at a proper place of search results is - as general it sounds - providing content that people are both interested in and are looking for.<br /><br />In general, search engines have been designed by people who are skilled at gathering, storing and analyzing data, programmers, mathematicians and other talented people with innovative ideas. However in the age when nearly anyone in the free world can access the internet, the ratio of people used to handling raw information have rapidly decreased. In other words, most people do not think about information the way search engine designers would. <br /><br />Search engine optimization ( SEO ) is the bridge over the gap, it is to bring people with average computer skills, and the information they look for together. It overlaps the sometimes still too mathematics-based search engine technology, and takes you a step closer to your target audience. SEO should be about examining how people are looking up information on the web, and not how you may trick them into visiting your website. <br /><br />1.: Choosing your Keywords<br /> A research done by Entireweb 31% of people enter 2 word phrases into search engines, 25% of all users look for 3 word combinations and only about 19% of them try their luck with only a single word. <br /> Do not choose a keyword to optimize your site for that you don't have the slightest chance of ranking good with because of the fierce competition. <br /> Do not choose a keyword that nobody looks for. <br /> Do not choose a keyword that does not relate strongly enough to your content. <br /> Only use generally popular keywords if you do not need targeted traffic. <br /> Do not use words that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines. <br /> Do not use images with filenames or ALT tags ( Alt attributes of IMG tag ) that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines. <br /> Only use dynamic pages when the functionality demands it. <br /> Use lots of relevant content, well laid out into separate pages. <br /> For best results optimize one page for one keyword. <br /> Do not post half-finished sites. <br />2.: HTML Content<br />2.1.: <br /><.META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="Books, Library, Author, Authors, Title, Titles, Out of print, Old Books, Rare Books, Online Library"><br /><.META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Online Library is a collection of rare or out of print books. Search by author, title, or content. "><br /><.META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><br /><br /><br /><.BODY><br /><br /><.H1> Welcome to the Online Library <./H1><br /><.H6>. Here you will find a collection of rare or out-of-print books in electronic format. We provide you with a comprehensive search, so you can look up any book by author, title, or its content <.H6><br /><br /><.P><.H5><.A HREF="main.html">Click here to proceed to the Online Library><./A><./H5><./P><br /><br /><./BODY><br /><./HTML> <br /><br /><br /><br />Advanced SEO Advice<br />For established websites, refer to the Website Diagnostics articles at Googlerankings.com Diagnostics<br />articles by Googlerankings.com, 11.2006. through 05.2007.<br />Since SEO may differ for each and every sector, Internet Marketing and Search Engine Marketing trends shift on a near weekly basis, the DOs in search engine optimization are as vague as the ever-developing online supply and demand. Ethics, guidelines , written and unwritten rules of conduct are also vary for different areas, and while a less competitive sector may not require all that much effort in bringing a new website to the attention of the public, over populated areas produce new visions, methods and even spam on a daily basis.<br /><br />Hence, the faces of SEO range from opportunism to great new marketing innovation, and there is no definite rule in what to do to reach one's goal. On the other hand, and especially because of this, Search Engines have to keep up their proper indexing and categorization efforts in order to provide relevant result, in which process they filter out websites from their results that are ( or are sending false signals to be ) in any way below the quality, accessibility, trust or importance thresholds. Also should a website be, or show signals of guideline breaches or illegal content, Search Engines may penalize and/or ban their presence from the search results, temporarily or permanently.<br /><br />The DOs in SEO vary a lot, possibilities and combinations are infinite. One may experiment with any campaign freely, but only with a relative knowledge of the DONTs will a website be able to maintain a sustainable development plan.

<p class="MsoNormal">People often come to me and want to self-administer and manage their SEO process. There are a lot of details to understand, but let's take a case where someone already has a website and has access to their site through a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system" title="Content Managment System">CMS</a> system or direct access to the web code.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />First thing you should do is search your exact domain name (www.websuccessbydesign.com for example) in all the major searches. If it comes up, you are being indexed. If not, we'll address that in a future post.<br /><br />We are now going to start with updating your site's META tags. <br /><br />There are three </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system" title="Meta elements provide information about a given webpage, most often to help search engines categorize them correctly">META</a> contents to each page that she should have access to change :<br />Title: (something like - “Custom cabinetry in Seminole County” would be a quality page title) -- each page should be different, and this will be what’s displayed in bold when you do a search.<br />Keywords: (list about 20 words separated by comma’s Both locations and products go in this list) – there should be slight variations between pages on the site.<br />Description: A marketing statement. Limit to 150 characters but try to go over 120. This should be different on each page of the site.<br /><br />Update every page on the site with relevant content in these three categories.<br /><br />Also, contact your provider/site host and renew your domain name for at least 5 years. The search companies use expiration date to determine who’s around to stay and who’s fly by night.<br /><br />Ok, once that's done, relax for a few days and then come back for some more self-help!<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Ok, this is a bit of a diversion....<br /><br />Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with a few potential clients. Since the actual 'sales call' part of running my own business has always been my nemesis, I look at these meetings as a potential for personal and professional growth. <br /><br />One of the themes that I realized I hadn't been covering in my marketing campaigns was the "Good Busy" vs. "Bad Busy" concept. It's very simple. If you are too busy to do the work you need to advance your business and you aren't happy with where the business is going, you are "Bad Busy" and need to make some changes in order to plan for success. If you are raking it in hand-over-fist and see no signs that it will change in the future, you are "Good Busy" and don't need to be reading this.<br /><br />I met with a doctor that had just signed a contract and was very receptive to my input on marketing his practice. When we discussed some low-cost options for marketing and some deliverables he had for me, he was a bit hesitant to commit his time. He explained that he is very busy and may have trouble meeting some of those deadlines.<br /><br />I also met with a small software company that is having some trouble and wants a better marketing engine. This time, the theme was a little more resistant to the self-marketing techniques I was suggesting. A flat "I'm too busy" was the stock response. <br /><br />We will discuss these cases over the next few months as the sites come together and the marketing engines roll out. <br /><br />This is just a reminder that you need to analyze your needs and what you are willing to invest in your own success. If you are too busy to make the investment, but aren't as profitable as you would like; you may want to consider making some changes to allow for long-term growth of your business. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The most important aspect of any website is that it encourages people to return. When people use a website as a resource, they start talking about it and your popularity will grow. People will share your site online with their friends, and over time that will build respect for your organization. It's a lot easier than it ever has been, but it's still quite a daunting task. For this to work, you truly need to be an expert, or at least have a great amount of infomration to aggregate and organize for your readership. We'll talk about news syndication soon.<br /><br />There is also the option of creating an online forum community. That will get users together that share interests common to your industry. You already need a fair amount of respect and notoriety to get this working successfully. Build a forum, stimulate great conversation, and watch it grow. To properly manage a forum, it is a lot of work. I've set many up for clients and at least half aren't successful because the subject matter experts aren't able to stimulate conversation well enough to encourage the return traffic. The communities that become popular are truly internet forces that can make your business a household name in the coming years. <br /><br />Ok, the easiest way to get teturn traffic -- update your customer-specific content regularly. Have a current schedule, offer coupons on the web only. Actively encourage people to view your website and return to it. That way, they will remember you when they talk to your friends. If you have a great domain name, your customers will drive your traffic. <br /><br />Maybe next time we will talk about how to choose a great domain name. <o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p>Chances are you are going to find this blog and stumble across this post far down the road... I'm writing a book entitled "Web Success by Design" and am using this as a bit of a launching and discussion platform. This blog and the book are geared more toward the small business owner than the web professional.</p> <p>I am going to discuss the importance of a business having its own website, and more importantly the importance of understanding your market and desired market. I will add some categories over time, focusing more on search engine understanding and site optimization, CRM tools, and other things necessary as you dive deeper</p> <p>We will also share some thoughts on specific site design and what makes a website valuable to your organization -- where to focus your limited budget, and how to grow your business and income through inexpensive methods. Although Guerrilla Marketing is an element we are going to discuss, we will focus more on intelligent use of your conventional marketing budget and other inexpensive techniques that won't be thought of as deceptive the way the guerrilla marketing is often considered.</p> <p>We will discuss search engine ranking and the myths surrounding the actual value of this as a financial investment.</p> <p>We will then move on to discuss the importance of understanding who visited your site, why, and when -- in relation to other marketing efforts and sales drives.</p> <p>Finally, we will analyze our efforts and return to focusing our resources on the most successful campaigns.</p>

<div>“Links” are pathways from one website to another. The Internet was built on this series of interconnections between sites. Links are seen on virtually every page on the Internet, and when clicked, bring the Internet surfer to another page.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>A link from your page to a page on another website or domain is called an outbound link; the link leads out of your website. When you link to another page of your own site, this link is outbound too, relative to the page on which it is placed.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>Inversely, when a page on another website links to a page on your site, this link is incoming, or inbound link , for</div> <div><br /></div> <div>A “reciprocal” link contains both inbound and outbound links to the same two websites.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>Links are important for helping human users find relative, interesting, informative and useful content on the Internet, and they have special value to search engines like Google and Yahoo!. Search engines consider the number of links, age of link, and link quality when applying ranking algorithms to pages. They follow a simple logic: the more incoming links a Web page receives, the more other pages and websites have cast their "votes" for this Web page by considering it an interesting resource. Thus, this page should be ranked higher.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>Remember that search engines rank pages, not sites. Thus, if a specific page is not considered interesting by other webmasters it will have few inbound links to it from other sites. On the other hand, another page on the same site may be considered interesting and have many inbound links from other sites.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>While link quantity is important, quality is even more important. Search engine algorithms are intentionally built to give inbound links more value than others. Simple links are not given the same weight as links with the following advantages:</div> <div>Links from pages deemed to be more relevant, in terms of topic and theme;</div> <div>Links labeled with more keyword rich anchor text and surrounded by relevant descriptions;</div> <div>Links from pages with a higher Google PageRank;</div> <div>Links that originate from content pages rather than from "links pages" and free-for-all link catalogs. However, this doesn't concern the pages of Web's most popular directories DMOZ and Yahoo!, as the links from them are considered "expert".</div> <div>Inbound links are generally helpful to the site that receives the link, but there are exceptions. Luckily, it is not possibile to get your site banned or excluded from listings if you get a "bad" inbound link from a penalized website; search engines recognize that no one can control who links to their website. Some incoming links, including those from guest books, link farms and free-for-all link pages provide almost no gain in the rankings because they are generally ignored by the search engines.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>Becoming involved in any linking scheme solely designed to trick the search engines into providing higher rankings could result in a penalty or even an outright ban. All such schemes should be avoided.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>The concept of Link Popularity refers to the number and quality of links inbound to your website pages - the higher the number of links pointing to your page, the higher your link popularity. However, the number itself is not the only factor that determines your site's importance. The other related factor that determines your site's importance is Link Quality.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>Link quality may be defined as the quality of content in the sites that are linked to yours, as well as the industry relevance to your site. The link anchor text (the actual text of the hyperlink visible to the visitors of the linking site) adds to the link quality if relevant to your content. The number of links on the linking page itself is considered vital by some search engines. The link will not be given much weight if it is placed on a page with thousands of similar links. However, if the page linking to yours has only a few links or a low link-to-content ratio, this is considered a quality link.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>Your work with links should constitute a large part of your Search Engine Marketing strategy.</div>

<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11px; "> <h1 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 15px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 24px/normal Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; color: #006699; font-weight: normal; "><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 12px; ">The term <em>search engine </em>is often misused to describe both directories and true search engines. They are not the same; the difference is how result listings are generated.</span><br /></h1> <div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #333333; font-size: small; "> <p style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #666666; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; ">There are four major search engine types:</p> <ul type="disc" style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px; display: block; list-style-type: square; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; "> <li>crawler-based (traditional) search engines;</li> <li>directories (human-edited catalogs);</li> <li>hybrid engines (META engines and those using other engines' results);</li> <li>pay-per-performance and paid inclusion engines.</li> </ul> <div>

<p><span style="font-style: italic;">"Web site architecture is something I feel has been poorly addressed by search engine marketers. Reason? Many search engine marketers ONLY specialize in search engine advertising, or they ONLY specialize in search engine optimization. They do not create user-friendly websites for a living. They do not perform usability tests on page layout, site designs, and navigation schemes".</span></p> <p><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; ">Shari Thurow, author of "<a target="_phpbbsmilies" onmouseover="callout.show(event,'item_id=71',false,false,300,300)">Search Engine Visibility</a>"</span></p> <p>When properly composed, site architecture will significantly assist your website in getting high rankings. A poorly structured website can negate all your on-page SEO efforts.</p>