The Ecommerce Blog

Looking for new ways to get improved search engine placement for your web site? Then maybe you should spend a little more time socializing online!

I’m talking about getting more active on social media web sites like MySpace, Flickr, and Digg.

Sure, these sites might be the online hangouts where people like to goof off during their “down time” at work…

But they’re also extremely popular web sites with high Google PageRank numbers — and if you can get links on these sites to point to your site, it might get driven to the top of the search engine results page for your keywords!

In a recent newsletter, I talked about how creating a keyword-rich article and distributing it on the Web can improve your ranking in the free search engines.

It’s an easy way to get relevant sites linking back to you, and it doesn’t cost you a dime!

Well, posting content on the social media sites is another great way to achieve these same goals. It’s just that the type of sites — and the type of content you post on them — are different.

And the best part about this strategy is that it involves hanging out at fun sites you’d probably enjoy spending time at, anyway!

But before I show you how to “socialize” your way to improved search engine placement, let’s take a closer look at exactly what social media web sites are.

Discover how these popular online hangouts can lead to improved search engine placement!

These days, social media sites are HUGE! In fact, they make up five of the top 10 fastest-growing Web brands on the Internet, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

And this explosive growth isn’t likely to end anytime soon.

So if people are hanging out on these sites in ever-expanding numbers, don’t you want to be there too? Just like in the offline world, “location, location, location” is the key to success!

Now, there’s been a pretty big buzz around the phrase “social media” lately. But what exactly does it mean?

Social media sites are simply online gathering places where people share interesting, entertaining, informative, or just plain goofy content with each other.

This content can take many different forms. It can be…

Personal information in the form of blogs

Useful articles about anything and everything

Photos or video clips that people might get a kick out of watching

Collections of bookmarks to favorite online articles or web sites that people can check out for themselves

Members of these communities can comment on each other’s contributions, engage in discussions, and find other people who are interested in the same things they are.

Hanging out and participating at these sites can be a great way to make new online friends or business contacts.

It’s also an effective strategy you can use to drive more traffic to your business site — not only from the social media sites themselves, but also from the improved search engine placement you’ll get from having more high-PageRank links pointing to your web site!

Social media sites can be organized into a few main categories:

Social networking sites: These sites are basically online communities that connect people through networks of friends.

MySpace is the Internet’s most-visited social networking community. On their profile pages, MySpace users can describe their interests, upload pictures, post blog-style entries, and list the other MySpace users who have become their friends.

They can even post audio and video clips to share with other people!

Independent musicians and bands were the first group to take advantage of the interactive nature of MySpace to get their product out there. They found they could attract devoted followings by posting audio clips of their latest songs and updating fans on their concert schedules.

This has been a big hit with teenagers and twentysomethings, who come to the site to learn more about the bands who are poised to be the next “big thing.”

But MySpace isn’t just for the teen scene anymore! Even professionals like financial planners and lawyers have started networking and community-building on MySpace.

The fact is, people in pretty much any field can gain more exposure by creating a MySpace page. And the great thing is, it’s free!

So set up an account for yourself, start networking and adding other people in your industry to your “friends” list, and make your name and web site visible on these wildly popular sites.

And don’t forget to link to your business site in your profile!

If you’re interested in exploring other popular social networking sites, some of the top ones include: Friendster, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Social bookmarking sites: At social bookmarking sites, people save links to their favorite web sites or articles — just like you do with the “Favorites” or “Bookmarks” function in your own personal web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer or Firefox).

When you save your favorite links at a bookmarking site like del.icio.us, they become public and can be viewed by other members of the site.

You can also “tag” your links with descriptive keywords, so people have a better idea of what kind of content your links are pointing to.

Tagging your bookmarks is useful in another important way: When people use the site’s internal search engine to look for bookmarks on a particular topic, any ones that are tagged with keywords related to that topic will appear in the search results.

The more an article or a web site gets bookmarked by members of these sites, the higher it ranks in the search results.

So if you include an appropriately tagged link to your own site (or to an article you’ve written) in your bookmarks list, and a lot of other members add it to their bookmarks as well, your link will be seen by a lot more people searching for your keywords.

And if your link becomes really popular, it might even end up on the bookmark site’s homepage — which will generate a TON of traffic and incoming links to your web site!

Okay, so that’s the “Holy Grail” of using bookmarking sites as a traffic-generating strategy… and the chances of it happening are actually quite slim…

But even just ONE link from a top bookmarking site like Digg, del.icio.us, Netscape, Reddit, or Furl will boost your site’s value in the eyes of the search engines.

So why not spend the few minutes it takes to create an account on these sites and give it a shot?

After you set up an account, list a few of your favorite sites as bookmarks, making sure to also include links to YOUR web site or articles. And don’t forget to make them public, so others can view your favorites as well.

Media-sharing sites: Have you ever checked out the latest videos at YouTube, or the most popular pictures at Flickr?

These web sites have been taking the Internet by storm, with everyone rushing to upload their favorite cat videos, or photos from their vacation, or latest business conference pictures. But you can also find things like real estate “virtual tour” videos being uploaded and viewed.

So if you’re a real estate agent, a great way to increase your market visibility would be to get an account, upload a video tour of a listing, and then tag it with appropriate keywords.

Anyone who’s searching for video info on real estate in your area will probably come across your video tour — and learn about you in the process!

Online video and photo-sharing sites have been growing by leaps and bounds, and they also show no signs of slowing up.

The top video sites include YouTube and Google Video, while the most popular photo-sharing web sites are Flickr and Fotolog.

Wiki sites: A wiki is a type of web site that lets ALL its users update the site’s content.

Every visitor to a wiki web site can add to, delete, or edit the site’s content, creating a sort of living web page full of fresh perspectives and up-to-the-minute information from multiple users.

Take Wikipedia.org (the Web’s biggest and best-known wiki): It’s an online encyclopedia that allows users to update its database of entries on everything from historical figures, to technical terms, to world events.

So by creating an account at Wikipedia, you can start making changes to existing articles, or add completely new articles related to your industry or area of expertise and grow your reputation as an expert in your field!

Plus, you can look for suitable opportunities to include links to your own web site or articles in the entries you edit.

For example, at the end of every Wikipedia article is a section called “External links.” If you write an entry on a term related to your product or industry, and your web site can help people learn more about this topic, you can include a link back to your site!

One thing, though: Since other users can also edit your entry — as well as the links you’ve included — the link to your web site must be relevant, or else it will likely be removed by another member of the community.

How to attract the most eyeballs by posting attention-grabbing content on social media sites

Take a moment to think about what people do when they’re sitting in front of their computer at work and want to take a quick mental break…

If they’re one of the millions of people who like hanging out at bookmarking sites, maybe they’ll pop over to Digg to see what the daily top bookmarks are.

Now… which headline do you think they’ll be more likely to click on?

“Chirac Urges World Powers Not to Refer Iran to Security Council”

– or –

“How to Roast Coffee at Home With a Popcorn Popper” My bet is on the latter, because it sounds like a fun way to waste a couple of minutes and learn an unusual skill — and besides, what office worker doesn’t love coffee?

Now imagine if you ran a small coffee-roasting business — just think about the kind of exposure an article like this could get you, if it were featured on Digg’s homepage.

The trick to creating fun social media content that spreads through the Internet like wildfire (going “viral,” as it’s called) is to write entertaining articles, that are short, compelling, and eye-catching.

First, write a headline that grabs readers’ attention and tells them exactly how your article is going to help or entertain them. Then keep your piece short, easy to scan, and fun to read.

In fact, lists are often some of the most popular articles on social bookmarking sites. People who visit these sites are usually looking to waste a few minutes online, and they don’t want to read a bunch of heavy text.

That’s why lists are so great! They’re easy to format and quick to read, and don’t waste any time getting to the punchline.

Media-sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube obviously need different content because they’re dealing with video and images. But the same principle of creating short, snappy, and entertaining content still applies.

Many of the most popular videos on YouTube, for example, are short compilations of funny video clips — like you see on the TV show America’s Funniest Home Videos.

But content that’s entertaining AND solves people’s problems can also be effective. “How-to” videos that teach people a specific skill are extremely popular in certain markets.

Now I’m sure many of you are thinking, “How am I supposed to create an entertaining article or video when I sell a boring product like widgets?”

The truth is, there are thousands of ways to create entertaining content for these sites — if you use your imagination.

Here are some examples and ideas to get you started:

Compile an entertaining or informative list related to your industry: One of the most popular September stories on the tech-oriented Digg is titled “112 Windows Run Commands.”

The article is simply a list of shortcuts that will help Microsoft Windows users save a lot of time — and people obviously liked the article, because it’s already received 2,363 “diggs,” or votes, from Digg users!

And just think about how many of these people emailed the article to their friends!

If you ran a web site that sold computer software, can you imagine what kind of traffic your site would have received if you had created and submitted this article yourself?

Take existing content in your newsletter or blog and repackage it for social media sites: You probably already have valuable content on hand that you’ve written for your site’s newsletter or blog.

Simply tweak this existing content to make it short and scannable, and re-use it on the social media sites!

Spend some time thinking up a snappy headline, because that’s the biggest factor in getting people to click on your article. And don’t forget to tag it with popular and appropriate keywords.

Create a funny compilation video: Let’s say you sell a relatively specialized product, like baby shoes. One thing you could do would be to run a contest on your web site where the person who submits the funniest baby video wins a free pair of shoes.

After you’ve chosen a winner, simply string all of the best entries into a single video.

Then upload your video to YouTube or Google Video with the tags “funny” and “baby” — and don’t forget to include information about your web site.

In fact, I just did a search at YouTube for the term “funny babies” and the first video in the search results page has been viewed 67,143 times in the last nine months — and the clip is only 10 seconds long!

If 67,000 people had viewed your baby video in the last nine months — with the URL to your business site clearly displayed at the end — I can guarantee you’d be seeing a LOT more traffic.

Remember: These don’t have to be lengthy professional videos — something filmed with a digital camera or even a cell phone works great!

About the Author
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Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to start profitable Internet businesses that make $100,000 to $2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant access to all his most profitable marketing campaigns, strategies, tools, and resources that he’s used to grow $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/emailsecrets/t.cgi/883561
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According to Matt Cutts, there are over 100 factors that affect search engine ranking. For those of you who don’t know, Matt is a Google guy guru, he is employed by Google but writes an independent blog and shares information related to Google and search engine optimization. Unfortunately, of those 100 items that account for search engine ranking, there are only a few that webmasters can actually control.

Unless you are a interested in an exercise of futility, it is important to only focus on those ranking factors that you, as a webmaster, can control and influence.

What are Search Engine factors do webmasters control?

Outside of the obvious (webpage title and description) those items which the webmaster has the most control are: PageRank, TrustRank, Anchor Text, Keyword Density, Domain Age, URL, and Relevant Links.

How can a webmaster use these items to help ranking?

First off–the obvious, each and every web page should have a descriptive page specific title and description. The title, description, and header tags are channels to communicate the most important details of a specific webpage. They should be used effectively, but not be abused. The web page should make use of h1 and h2 tags (header tags) to emphasize pertinent keywords and phrases.

Particular attention should be paid when formatting urls. Keywords related to the webpage can and should be used in the webpage urls. Use hyphens rather than underscores between the keywords. Search engines are designed by developers and programming languages will recognize a hyphen and distinguish separate words, while an underscore blends the words. Keywords in the URL should not be abused, as search engines do not appreciate excessively long urls. Avoid using characters like ID= in the URL as many search engines will see it as a unique session ID and not spider the contents of the webpage.

The website’s navigation depth should not exceed 3-4 levels. The shallow website depth will make a search engines deep crawl easier, ensuring that will be able to spider the entire contents of your website. If you add a new page and wish for it to be spidered quickly add a link to it from an existing spidered web page.

Domain hosting and location do matter! A .uk domain and a webhost located in the UK will increase the domains search engine position in any .uk search engine. If you are targeting a specific region or market consider purchasing a local domain.

Obviously you control the websites content;bad content or no content means no incoming links. Good content has the potential to attract good quality unsolicited links.

What kinds of content generally attract quality links?

The idea is develop quality content that will result in incoming links. Think of JibJab, http://www.jibjab.com they portrayed a controversial subject in a humorous way without alienating their audience. While JibJab was able to garner a lot of attention, its a tricky tight-rope to walk. Consider adding tutorials that explain a specific technology, create a niche directory or a topic specific glossary, post industry news, maintain a blog with fresh content, or write how to articles.

Take advantage of your content. If you write a press release don’t just send it to the editors, add it to your website in a press center. Submit the press release to public relations websites. There area a number of press related websites like PRWeb that are really good and all will result in good quality incoming links back to your website. Also add your press release(s) to an RSS feed, not only with this communicate with your customers that new products or updates are available but you will also benefit from links from RSS search engines and directories.

When you post a release or content that has genuine value, use social bookmarking tools (like digg, del.icio.us, furl) to bookmark the contents. These social bookmarking sites are becoming increasingly important in weighing the value of a site. The large search engines do not yet use social bookmarking in their algorithms, but it is quite possible and highly likely that they will in the future. If the webpage/content has genuine value others will social bookmark it as well. The bookmarks are viral and with increasing popularity there is more emphasis placed on the content. Additionally, bloggers notoriously skim social bookmarking sites for content to write about which will result in additional links. Keep in mind that in order to bookmark a webpage, it really must have genuine value.

Before we talk more about links, there are a few warnings worth mentioning.

What are the link warnings?

The first is to attain links gradually, search engines prefer links obtained over time rather than links achieved all at once. Avoid link schemes, link farms, or overt reciprocal links, they can be time consuming and have very little benefit. Avoid links on the C block. If you own multiple domains, be sure not to triangulate links. Search engines have become wise to this and they prefer a linking scheme that is more like a star (or web).

What keywords should you optimize for?

When determining what keywords to optimize a website for, there are a number of tools that will assess the number of times that a keyword or phrase is searched on, the number of websites/webpages competing for that keyword or phrase, and rate the phrase. Obviously, the terms that have more searches and less competition are the best to optimize for–if, and only if, they relate to your product or service. If you optimize for terms that are either too broad, you will likely increase traffic but decrease your conversions. It is really a balancing act. Two of the more popular tools available are Keyword Discovery and Word Tracker. Also, talk to friends or family members and ask what phrases they would use to describe your product or service. You might be surprised with the terms they use. Consider optimizing for regional variations, look at the variety of terms used to describe soda - tonic, pop, soda, soda pop, or cola all are relevant and popular but only within a specific region. Examine web logs to determine what your users are using, look at the language used in emails and forum posts and consider optimizing specific pages for popular descriptive terms.

And finally, use competitive intelligence to locate links and keywords. What are your competitors using? Analyze the adwords they bid on, look at their meta tags, look at their anchor links.

There is a wealth of information out there, no real mystery to it, so use it to your advantage.

About the Author
About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.

Web directories are an important component to search engine positioning. Directories come in all shapes and sizes, some are generic, while others are highly specialized. Directories, are defined as categorized topics or collections of information organized into a tree like structure where categories are used to define each groups association.

Large directories like Yahoo tend to have general themes and may charge for listings. While smaller niche directories like http://www.finance-investing.com offer free listings and profit from advertising revenue or pay per click models like Google AdSense.

Being listed in a directory not only brings in targeted traffic, it provides a one-way link from a website with similar content. Directories are generally highly ranked in search engines, and are considered well respected resources, two traits that are desirable in link partners.

While smaller directories that focus on a specific niche might generate less traffic, the quality of the traffic from a niche site is usually highly targeted and will be superior to that generated from general search engines.

If you are selling fire alarms, traffic from yahoo will be less qualified than traffic from Alarm Tools, http://www.alarm-tools.net. Most visitors to Alarm Tools will have a genuine interest in alarms and alerting systems. The nature of highly specialized directories result in visitors who have a serious interest in the directories theme, or a at the very least an interest in a theme related to the directory.

As a result, web publishers need to make a conscience effort not to ignore the value of directory listings. Regardless of their size, a related niche directory listing can be extremely valuable.

Many directories offer sponsorship opportunities. Vendors can optionally purchase sponsorship to increased their exposure with a bold listing or top category listings.

Determining a Directories Value It is difficult to assess the value of directory listing, as there is an obvious advantage to a listing of a closely related theme directory that is difficult to measure and quantify. In general, webmasters can use common web guidelines to determine the popularity of a directory and assess the directory link’s value.

To assess the value of a web directory, consider the PageRank of the webpage where the link placement of your site will occur. The PageRank is indicative of how important Google may find a specific page. Another reliable third party measuring tool is Alexa. The Alexa ranking provides insight into how popular a website is. In general, a link from a web page containing a PageRank of 5 or higher is considered very good. A link from a site in Alexa’s top 100,000 is also generally very desirable.

Compare the following two directories’ Monitoring Tools http://www.monitoring-tools.net and RSS Specifications http://www.rss-specifications.com. Monitoring Tools’ main page has a PageRank of 5 but most internal pages that contain links have low page ranks and the overall Alexa ranking of the site is over 650,000. While RSS Specification’s claims a main Google PageRank of 6 and subpages all contain a minimum of a 5 for PageRank, the overall site is ranked 32,000. Clearly if you are in the syndication business, RSS Specification’s would be a very desirable link partner, while you would have to weigh the cost benefit and position of a link from Monitoring Tools.

To determine a sites PageRank without downloading the Google Toolbar, use the following online tool from RustyBrick http://www.rustybrick.com/pagerank-prediction.php. A website’s Alexa ranking can be found by entering the URL into Alexa http://www.alexa.com.

It is recommended that PageRank and Alexa ranking be only used as a guide when determining a directories reputation. It is important not to get too caught up in either Google PageRank or Alexa Ranking as webmasters can use “tricks” to artificially inflate their numbers.

The bottom line, links from directories that are small but niche, can provide quality web traffic.

About the Author
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev http://www.feedfordev.com an RSS component for developers.