Want more website traffic? Of course we do and we both know search engines play a major role. And, search engines like to see “inbound” links. In fact, how many sites link to yours is one of the most important measures for search engine optimization (SEO). Why?

When other respected websites (higher page rank) link to your site it suggests authority and trustworthiness. One way to get inbound links from “authoritative” websites is to list your site in well known directories such as DMOZ, Yahoo!, Bing and Google. Best of all you can do this for free. Well, almost free – your time is worth something but it really doesn’t take too much time to get listed.

1. DMOZ – Known as the Open Directory Project, DMOZ is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.
2. Yahoo! Directory - The Yahoo! Search index, which contains several billion web pages, is more than 99% populated through the free crawl process. Yahoo! also offers several ways for content providers to submit web pages and content directly to the Yahoo! Search index and the Yahoo! Directory.
3. Bing Local Listing – What’s a Bing Local listing? Bing Local lets users find businesses near them, or near where they are going. Listings are included in search results so make sure your company is listed in the directory. It is like free advertising – the search engine helps your customers find you.
4. Google Local Business Center – Google provides detailed step-by-step instructions for how to add your business information to the Local Business Center.

Do you have your own favorite search engine optimization strategies  to share? Let us know by leaving a comment with your suggestions – thanks.

Greg Magnus
AIM Custom Media

The ability to distribute your content across several online platforms from one source is critical. And, if you want to save time and increase your online exposure you need a system to perform the task for you automatically. First, consider your content source. Are you using a Content Management System (CMS)? Examples include dynamic websites, blogs, and shopping carts. All include simple tools for re-publishing your content on other websites whenever you update the “source” (your website, blog, etc.).

LinkedIn.com “applications” is one example of an automated website marketing tool. Whenever I publish content on my blog it is automatically re-published to my LinkedIn profile where hundreds of my contacts are notified and millions of LinkedIn users can stumble upon the information while browsing. This simple process, which is easy to setup if you have a WordPress blog for example, increases traffic to your site. We measure the traffic using analytic tools such as Google Analytics, which is the science of website marketing. In a few clicks, we can determine the popularity of our latest blog post on LinkedIn, and a bunch of other sites for that matter.
[slider title="Support for LinkedIn.com"]Prefer we do this for you? If so, just give us a call: 804-723-9160. We provide LinkedIn customization as well as social media training for our clients and their staff.[/slider]

Similarly, you can connect your website content to dozens of social networking sites such as Facebook.com and Twitter.com; it is relatively easy when your website is built using a CMS.

Here’s a short-list of links to website tools – detailed explanations are included on the sites:

• bit.ly – Allows you to shorten long links and track how many people click on the link. This tool is great for posting on twitter or Facebook given you can measure how many clicks your shortened link gets. There are numerous tools similar to bit.ly. Here’s an article that covers five more: visit FriedBeef’s Tech blog here.
• StumpUpon.com – Allows you to bookmark and browse content made popular by a community of Stumblers; you can also use the tool to bookmark your content for others to view.
• AddThis sharing tool by clearspring. Including a “share” tool on your site makes it very easy for you and others to share your content with friends and colleagues.
• Website Grader – provides a website grading score that incorporates your website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how your website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
• Google Webmaster Tools – Check your keywords and how well you site ranks for those words and determine if any pages on your site are causing problems for Google when crawling your site. The tools also allow you to see what pages are getting the most links, etc.
• Term Extractor – This tool analyzes the content of a given page and extracts the terms that appear to be targeted at search engines.

• More than 350 million users are active on Facebook
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• More than 35 million users update their status each day
• More than 55 million status updates posted each day
• More than 2.5 billion photos uploaded and 3.5 million events created each month
• More than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news, blog posts, etc.) shared each week
• More than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook
• More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

And, its not just Facebook anymore. Google now uses social content when determining the ranking of web pages (SEO). Facebook is good for SEO and it has been very good for businesses for some time now.

Facebook Tips for Fan Pages

First Things First – Plan
To be effective requires a plan as well as fresh content on a regular basis. Once again, “content is King.” Give your potential customers and existing clients a reason to not only visit your Facebook pages but also help promote them. Keep in mind that updating the page doesn’t require a significant amount of effort if you first have a solid plan. Planning your campaign is a must – allocating the necessary resources to implement your plan goes without saying.

Social Networking is All About Leveraging Technology
Online marketing requires integration so understand that a significant amount of content is distributed automatically to numerous social media channels. Maximize your content and get better results by:

• Linking your blog posts to your Facebook wall. Your business website doesn’t include a blog? Get one.
• Use a service to update all of your social networks at once (Facebook, twitter, etc.)
• Similar automated services, widgets for example, are available for your YouTube and Flickr feeds

Engage Visitors But Avoid Confusion
Create a landing page on Facebook that you control. It is preferable to send traffic to a controlled welcoming page that highlights your brand instead of the “wall” page on your Facebook fan pages. The Fan page “wall” is a great and valuable tool for communicating with customers and prospects but it can be extremely confusing to first-time visitors.

A controlled page can also be used to offer users an incentive to become fans and help promote your brand. Contests, coupons, weekly specials and other tactics are being used effectively by numerous brands.

Be aware that new Facebook marketing guidelines were published last year in November. The guidelines require brands, marketers and advertisers to go through an approval process for contests. Get help if you don’t understand the requirements.

Interaction and Communication Required
First and foremost, understand completely that social media is all about interaction and two-way communication. Here’s a few basic tips to help you get conversations started:

• Ask questions that solicit honest opinions
• Create polls and provide access to tabulated results as well as candid reviews that support multiple views
• Don’t just post relevant industry news, provide – on a timely basis – executive summaries of industry trends

Don’t miss out; social networking will without a doubt enhance your brand and increase your marketing ROI. Face it, someone else paid to develop the technology and all you need to do is learn how to use it and get plugged in. 

Consider Ads
Advertising your business on Facebook is definitely something to consider. In fact, there are unique tactics available to precisely target a specific ad to a specific demographic profile. For example, you can target college graduates working in your target market that like fine wines and classical music – or a 50 something professional that likes head-banging punk music and Mexican food.

The two basic types of advertisements on Facebook are: (1) Display ads and (2) Social ads. Either can be purchased like banner ads (Cost Per Click, CPC) and Cost Per Thousand, CPM). Given Facebook users like staying within the Facebook environment, in general, create a killer Facebook Fan Page and direct your ads to that page.

Better yet, create a specific “tab” on that Fan page for your campaign; each tab has a unique URL by the way. If you’re not familiar with Facebook Fan page design, outsourcing is the way to go. Although relatively straight forward for design pros with programming skills, business owners that really don’t understand the features and how to use them will inevitably waste a lot of productive time on social networking.

Just like any business project, the social marketing rewards you’ll receive will be a reflection of the effort you put into it; haphazard planning and implementation won’t get you the results you desire online. But, those allocating the appropriate resources are gaining excellent results by leveraging social networking technology. 

‘Heavy clickers’ distort online advertising

The people clicking on your banner ads may not be the target audience you’re seeking, according to a new Starcom USA study. The study revealed that so-called “heavy clickers” are typically between the ages of 25 and 44, with a household income of under $40,000. They represent only 6% of the online population, but account for 50% of all display ad clicks.

Heavy clickers spend about four times more time online than non-heavy clickers….they aren’t necessarily brand loyal and often don’t even pay attention to the brand they are buying….

Source: BizReport.com, February 13, 2008 (Hat’s off to the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce for including this piece in their email newsletter, “Business Intelligence Report,” March 2008)

Assuming the above is correct, there is a tremendous amount of money being spent on 6% of the online population when you consider these recent reports published by The Internet Ad Bureau and the Kelsey Group (quote below is an excerpt of Erick Schonfeld’s summary on TechCrunch here):

Two reports are out today on the size of the Internet advertising market.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has a preliminary estimate of $21.1 billion for U.S. Internet ads in 2007, a 25 percent increase over 2006….Meanwhile, the Kelsey Group puts U.S. Internet advertising at $22.5 billion for 2007…

Also according to The Kelsey Group’s Annual Forecast (2007-2012), “interactive advertising revenues will increase significantly from $45 billion in 2007 to $147 billion globally in 2012, representing a 23.4 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate).”

Getting back to the benefits of organic SEO

Organic SEO has many benefits:

• Long shelf-life, if you will. It can literally improve your website traffic and support your rankings for years.
• Lower long-term marketing costs given content, keywords, and meta-tags don’t expire – a PPC ad campaign requires constant refueling.
• Requires focus on relevant content of value to your target audience. Although this is always important, it is a must for attaining desired organic SEO results.
• Helps you create valuable networking relationships with other business owners and online communities – as you get more traffic others will want to be linked to your site and the information you provide.

There are a few drawbacks. Organic SEO requires marketing savvy, some tech talent, and time to properly implement the online strategies.

We’re not saying PPC advertising isn’t worth considering, not at all. It comes down to your highest ROI. First, prepare your site, blog, newsletter, social networks, email, and other online materials to maximize your organic SEO. Make it a priority before you get out your wallet for that marvelous PPC ad campaign.