Promote your Website with SEO and Social Media Marketing in 5 Easy Steps

If you’re an established setup or a startup company heavily dependent on your website and internet marketing to sell your product/services, you need to pay close attention to search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing. Both can be a crucial factor in the success of your business. When combined with social media marketing, SEO can create a strong online presence and can attract loads of targeted traffic towards your website.

Social media marketing, till a very short time ago, was a relatively unknown term. It has exploded on the online arena recently as a means to reach the millions of prospective customers who look for information online. Youtube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. are becoming popular means of social media marketing for businesses. Some time ago, we covered the topic of using social media marketing as a tool to reach target customers. Some of the highlights from that post were:

• The concept of Social Media Marketing has exploded into the business scenario recently as the best way to communicate with target audience as well as for Search Engine Optimization. It is the most popular concept in vogue for internet marketing today.
  
  
• Compared to the millions of consumers businesses can reach through the internet, traditional marketing methods can only reach a limited number of people.
  
  
• Today companies, in addition to website optimization and SEO, are embracing social media marketing to reach its consumers.

Let us now move on to the 5 steps through which you can get great traffic to your website.

Drive Traffic to your Website through Search Engine Optimization

Once you have designed and developed your website, it is important to make it visible to the online users. In addition to having great products and services, you will need Search Engine Optimization to popularize your website. One simple tactic for starting SEO for your website is having a keyword-rich domain and integrating those keywords in the titles of your web pages. All you have to do then is to use the primary keyword and keyword phrases in the content you put up on your website. If your content is new and interesting and has a decent keyword density, the search engines will find you. After you optimize your website, you can consider other options like link building and paid forms of advertising like Pay Per Clicks etc. If taking care of all these details sounds tedious, you can hire a SEO expert.

Blog about Subjects Close to you

Blogs have become the informal way of connecting with the customers for many companies. They serve the dual purpose of making the company visible online as well as scoring points with the customers. Setting up your own blog is a simple and free process. You can get your own blog set up and ready for posts in three clicks on blogger.com, a site owner by Google. Updating a blog frequently and consistently with interesting information can help you interact with customers and gain a valuable insight to their likes and dislikes. With this feedback, you can improve your products or services in accordance to the taste of the customers. Optimize your blog posts a little for search engine optimization and voila, your blog will assist you in not only online community building but also driving valuable web traffic to your site.

Use the Social Media Network

As said before, social media marketing is the emerging trend to reach out to customers of all types. With millions of users hooked on to social media sites such as Youtube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. these websites are a great way to make your own network of dedicated followers. Create an attractive profile on one of these websites and keep friends, family and business associates updated on what’s happening in your business. Links of your business website on these profiles will also help in Search Engine Optimization for your website.

Make your Network and be Helpful

Just making your profile and posting updates is not enough to popularize your business on the social media network. You need to interact with other users, ask questions, and in some cases, answer them. Such interaction will give you crucial feedback which can be integrated into your business. Only if you give users some useful information and be helpful to them will they be interested in what is happening with you.

Keep Updating your Website with New Features

Lastly, keep updating your website with unique features which will interest the users so that they keep coming back to use them. Regularly updating your website also helps with search engine optimization and helps better search ranking of your website.

These 5 steps of search engine optimization and social media marketing will help you create a strong web presence and impression on your potential customers. But it is also important to remember the basics: people want great products or services for reasonable prices from a knowledgeable and trustworthy vendor. Having an ideal combination of these factors is a sure-shot way to success.

Ethical Search Engine Optimization: Some Important Dos and Don’ts

Search engine optimization is witnessing a boom in this recession. As more businesses turn to the internet to reach the millions potential customers, website optimization is becoming more popular as we speak. As success of one company and failure of its competitor is now associated with the company’s reach to its customers, SEO services are the priority on yearly marketing plans of most companies.

But in this rush to improve rankings through search engine optimization, it’s quite easy to make a wrong decision or opt for wrong methods. If unethical methods are used for short term gains, your website loses out in the long term, with the possibility of being black listed by the search engines.

What most people are unaware of is how to recognize these unethical SEO practices. The following are some points to guide you.

Black VS White

Black Hat SEO tries to trick search engines in giving websites a higher search ranking despite irrelevant content. It is the methodology which uses loopholes and unethical tactics to achieve a high search ranking in a short period of time. Black Hat SEO is not unheard of, and ideally, you should stay away from it. But it has one big tempting factor: higher ranking in a short period of time. Why bother about other factors, right? WRONG! Using wrong methods for SEO might sound the death knell for your website. Search engines are constantly looking to block sites which use Black Hat SEO. If your website is found, it may be banned or blacklisted from the search engines.

On the other hand, White Hat SEO is tougher, but it’s the most appropriate way to optimize. An ethical SEO consultant has to work very hard to keep up with the constantly changing search engine algorithms. There is constant work and the website is gradually improved via keywords, rich content and site navigation to meet the ethical demands of the search engines. This process takes time, but if you have the patience and persistence of going through it, White Hat SEO will give better results for a long time. You will get results through these ethical means in an average of three to four months.

Recognize Ethical SEO Experts

Always beware of SEO consultants promising #1 ranking in search engines within a few weeks; it is not possible. Also know that the search engine algorithm is ever changing; no SEO expert can claim to know it completely and accurately. Do not fall for the ‘hundreds of link exchanges’ or ‘thousands of article postings’ line most unprofessional SEO consultants use. Bulk link exchanges or article postings do not help unless they are relevant.

Be Patient

If the search engine optimization of your site is taking more time than you expected, it is a good sign; a short cut doesn’t always win. Be patient with SEO if it takes some time, because it could mean that work is in progress on the right track. Improving the visibility of your website involves a lot of backend work, with rich content, easy site navigation and other factors involved. Your SEO consultant has to work constantly so that the site’s ranking improves. And organic SEO always takes some time. Remember, it will benefit you in the long term.

Be Aware of the Process

Knowing the ethical and unethical means to search ranking, you have to be able to identify which method is being used for your website’s search engine optimization. Keep yourself abreast of the process undertaken by the SEO expert you hire. Ask questions and interact with him as much as possible. This way, you can keep tabs on the methodology being used to optimize your site.

In Conclusion…

Avoid SEO consultants who:

• Guarantee #1 ranking within a few weeks


• Try finding loopholes to lure search engines


• Claim knowing the search engine algorithm


• Talk of bulk link exchange or article posting at hundreds of sites


• Refuse to give you details of how they work


• Suggest stuffing keywords into meta tags and content


• Recommend permanent redirects

Use Social Media Marketing to Improve your SEO Ranking

Do you know that some of the biggest companies are asking their marketing departments to spend more time on websites like LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, MySpace, Facebook etc? If the statistics of 2008 are to be believed, the online social media commands the highest time and attention of youngsters today. The young generation loves it as it is an innovative way to connect and communicate with people all around the world. People’s social as well as professional communication is undertaking a change as they discuss everything from Oscars to Obama on websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace. Social media is hence a new category of internet which is a huge crowd-puller. Brand marketers use it as a source for targeted marketing to put across their messages, get feedback on their brand and sales promotion campaigns.

The concept of Social Media Marketing has exploded into the business scenario as the best way to communicate with target audience as well as for Search Engine Optimization. It is the most popular concept in vogue for internet marketing today. With even the smallest businesses going online and tech savvy for a better reach to their consumers, this is hardly surprising. Compared to the millions of consumers businesses can reach through the internet, traditional marketing methods can only reach a limited number of people. Companies, in and SEO, are embracing social media marketing to reach its consumers.

What Social Media Marketing is…

The term “social media” is given to the collection of online mediums through which users communicate on issues they are interested in. The most popular social media are said to be websites like LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook etc. These websites have forums created and maintained by users, rather than the company itself or its employees. Social media marketing is a way of utilizing this vast network of social media for marketing purposes. Initially used as a tool for interaction, social media is now looked upon as a medium by businessmen to get their message across to their target consumers. Also known as “social internet marketing”, “social network marketing” and “social marketing”, this concept is becoming a preferred tool for businessmen looking for publicity. In essence, social media marketing combines the word-of-mouth publicity with the millions of internet users. It is used for various purposes like increasing online presence, inbound linking, brand awareness and positive feedback from consumers.

How it Works…

Social media is based on conversations between people of the things they like, with recommendations being passed along if they come across anything interesting. If you have a blog with regular postings of interesting topics, you can promote them on social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook etc. If users like your blog, they will pass it along to friends. This way, the information about your company gets passed along by users who like it, to people in their contact. There is a level of trust established between the two users, hence when one recommends your blog to another, it works better than any advertisement ever can.

But your work is not limited only to submitting your blog. After submitting your post at these social bookmarking sites, you need to interact with users with similar interests as yours. You can start building a network by checking out other posts, commenting on them and interacting with the person who has posted that blog. It would be a mistake if you keep on submitting your blog post and expect others to find it. By popularizing your blog this way, you can get inbound links as well as brand awareness for your business. The inbound links, in turn, will also improve your SEO ranking through organic SEO. In addition to blogs, you can also give links to interesting websites and updated information on various issues.

The key to making social media marketing work is generating interest in the content or topic being covered. Quality content is always stressed on, but it plays a vital role in the success or failure of a social media marketing campaign. Users browsing the social bookmarking sites are looking for innovative, new and interesting content, which they then will pass on to their friends. If the content on your blog is uninteresting or old, it will not spread to other users, and they will eventually stop following your blog.

Who Can Use SMM…

Not only large business houses with a pool of resources to dedicate to marketing, but smaller businesses are also starting to use social media as a marketing tool. We hence hear of food vans using Twitter to let followers know which area they will be touring this month, while established banks and others have introduced interactive blogs to let users know of its history. Any business with an internet connection can utilize SMM for business development. It is a better option to putting up ads online and is better accepted due to the creditability of recommendations made by known people.

A Word of Caution…

The message that you want to convey to people in the social media is not controlled by you, but by the users. People are just as likely to complain about a lousy product as recommend it if it was good. It has to be a 2-way interaction, with you giving out useful information in order to get a positive feedback. If the delicately-balanced trust of the users is shattered, they might spam you out of their circle or give you negative feedback.

Social media marketing is a tough concept and requires a lot of time and effort to become successful. It takes time and commitment to develop contacts, trust and respect with the online community and the results are obtained in a long term. If you don’t have the time to put into social media marketing, you can hire an SEO expert or SEO consultant to maintain your online presence through social media marketing.