Twitter Marketing: Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Users

A few days ago Twitter announced on their status blog that all Twitter users are only allowed to follow a maximum of 1000 people a day. This rule was designed to cut down on ‘follow spam’, the act of following many Twitter users in order to get them to follow you back or click on your links.

When combined with the already existing limit based on follow ratios, this means that it will be more difficult for marketers or self-promoters to rapidly increase their Twitter follower count by following many people. The old days of following thousands of users a day to get thousands of followers back are gone.

That’s not to say the strategy of mass following users to increase your Twitter followers doesn’t work anymore. It does. Why? Because many people use tools to auto-follow anyone who follows them. And there are new users who think its only polite to reciprocate. So you can easily get tens of thousands of followers from this strategy over time.

I see quite a few people still practicing this method. Some are social media enthusiasts or consultants, some are internet marketers or bloggers. All of them are people who want to get something in return. They want to:

1. Make money. The goal is to monetize Twitter users by linking and recommending products or services, either their own or others if they are an affiliate. They do this by tweeting out links and sending automated direct messages with the same offers when someone follows them back.

   
   

2. Improve their reputation. They amass followers with the aim of improving their reputation in a specific field like marketing or social media. They also use their followers to boost their prominence on other social arenas like Digg or Facebook.

   
   

3. Get more visitor traffic. More followers means more visitors to their websites so they can get more subscribers, readers and members. They also want the ability to make specific content go ‘viral’ and become popular by sharing it with their followers.

Many people think that to achieve all of the above, they need to build a large list of Twitter followers and broadcast links to get free traffic. It’s a simple strategy. The more followers you have, the more people listen to you, and the easier it is to spread your messages.

But do you really need a large number of followers to promote yourself successfully on Twitter? The answer is no. Not at all. But many people still persist in mass following users. Let’s look at some of the reasons why you don’t need to use this marketing tactic.

Low-Value Followers: Automatons, Spammers and Self-Promoters

Many products on Twitter marketing have been released by internet marketers looking to profit from the growing interest in Twitter. These products give you the same blueprint: just get more twitter followers. All you need to do is to follow many users everyday, drop non-mutuals and then follow more. Repeat until you get a ton of followers and look like a social media rockstar. If people follow you, you must be awesome, right?

The only problem is that these are low-value followers. Not because they are dumb or socially inferior but because a good amount of these followers are not ultra-targeted, active or responsive. Many of them are self-promoters, spammers or automated feed accounts. These people aren’t interested in you. They don’t care about you. They didn’t REALLY opt-in. They even followed you automatically, didn’t they?

If we were to draw comparisons to a email list or newsletter, these types of people are the ones who would use a temporary email address to sign up so they can get your freebie and disappear. Most of them aren’t going to end up retweeting your stuff, most of them don’t even read your tweets. Most of them don’t give a damn about your ideas.

It’s not about the follower count, its about conversions. A carefully cultivated list of 1000 followers can beat a list of 10,000 twitter followers anytime when it comes to spreading content or getting traffic/sales. A social media strategy that only involves mass following all sorts of people and shooting out links in order to hook buyers or readers is quite inadequate.

Low-value followers are incredibly easy to get and the only positive thing about them is that they’ll make you look good. Judging influence by the follower count is something that people do. It’s social proof. So you have 80,000 followers. You can probably start a social media consulting business and tell everyone that you’re an expert. Or write that ebook and flaunt your follower count on the sales page. You can fool a lot of people and you’ll make money too.

So play the Twitter game of mass adding and dropping users for a few months. You may even meet some cool people but don’t assume that you have 50,000 users who actually read your tweets or are interested in you. They aren’t. And you’re irrelevant to them.

Remember, you’re not getting natural opt-in follows preempted by interest. All you have is an inflated number. Maybe you think that’s something to be proud of but if a 7 year old kid can press a auto-follow button and get 500 followers in 24 hrs, you’re not that impressive.

Twitter Marketing is More Than Just Getting Followers

Unless you are a celebrity or a famous brand, you will never get hundreds of thousands of natural follows from people who are interested in what you have to say. If you want to look like a VIP, you can fake it by manipulating follower counts like most self-promoters.

But do you really think that’s effective Twitter marketing? Sometimes I feel that marketers should stop this obsession with volume and carefully think about cultivating a better follower list as well as other more effective ways of using Twitter for marketing.

I don’t want to blindly label all mass-following users as spammers. Some are not malicious nor are they aggressive self-promoters. I’m just questioning the overwhelming focus on this tactic, as if its the only way to accumulate influence or market yourself on Twitter. It’s not.

This isn’t an attack on anyone. If you think that mass following many users to boost your follower count is great, keep doing it. I’ve got no problems with that. I’m just offering my opinion on why I think its flawed. This comes from having actually experimented with this strategy, so it’s not just theoretical postulations.

In my opinion, while having a large number of Twitter followers is not a bad thing, there are some other key factors you should consider if you’re want to use Twitter to market yourself or your website/brand. These are points which I think are quite important even if your ONLY reason for using Twitter is to make money or get traffic.

The most important thing you should remember: It’s not about the number of Twitter followers you have, its about who follows you and the responsiveness of your audience.

Who Follows You: The People Who Give You Their Attention

It matters who reads your tweets. Are these people interested in you or your business? An interested follower is naturally more engaged with whatever you put out on Twitter. People who automatically follow you do not count as interested followers.

Are your followers active? Active users share your links, they give you feedback, they talk to you. Automated or semi-automated users are not active users that will interact with you.

And do the people who follow you have influence? Would you rather get 50 retweets from users with 10 to 100 random followers? Or you rather get 10 retweets from influencers in same niche, with all of them having 1000 to 10,000 very relevant followers?

How about tweeting out a link or idea and having someone with a blog in the same niche write about it and link to you? Can your army of auto-followers offer the same? Not every Twitter user has the same audience size. Some users can reach more people much faster and these are the ones that can help you.

This is not to suggest that the average twitterer is useless but to highlight the unequal influence of each user. Who follows you matters a great deal because powerful Twitter marketing involves not just link-blasting but networking and relationship development.

Responsiveness of Your Audience: Are They Engaged?

Responsiveness is the degree to which your Twitter audience is engaged with whatever messages you put out on Twitter. A responsive audience connects with you, retweeting your links and answering your questions. They interact with your Twitter stream.

When we talk about a responsive email list, we’re talking about subscribers who are willing to buy or take action on your offers. Responsive Twitter followers are similar: they take action on your tweets by spreading them or talking back to you.

An easy way to measure responsiveness is to ask a question and see how many people respond. The no. of link clicks and retweets are other factors as well but anyone can click on a random link: it just shows that they’re interested in the link title or story. But are they interested in you? Actual responses to your queries are a good measure of that.

A responsive Twitter audience naturally develops when people are interested in you, what you do and who you are. Celebrities have the most responsive followers, many of their subscribers even sign up for a Twitter account just to interact with their tweets. They’re actively looking forward to reading new tweets from their favorite personality. This anticipation and interest makes them a perfect audience for conversions and call-to-actions.

If you’re not already famous, you will have a tougher time building a responsive audience because you don’t get natural interest in you from the start. One way to generate this interest is to develop a reputation in your field so that your name or brand is known.

This means you shouldn’t just spend your whole day following/unfollowing, tweeting links and chit-chatting. You have to work at your brand away from Twitter. If you put out an interesting tool or piece of content, you’ll get interest. If you’re selling a product that solves a problem, you’ll get interest. As you become more known online, you will get people following you.

When on Twitter itself, you can develop responsiveness through reciprocation. By actively interacting with other users, you will induce them to pay more attention to your updates. But don’t just send out updates and only talk to people who reply to your tweets. Actively monitor and engage users. Over time they will warm up to you and responsiveness will increase.

Remember, you don’t just want a large follower count. You want a responsive group of followers. People who are genuinely interested in you and people who will click on your links, retweet you or respond to your queries. Ultimately this group of Twitter followers can help you popularize your website or grow your business.

My Follow Strategy for Twitter Marketing

Instead of autofollowing a ton of people and rinsing them out to get mutual followers who are either not interested or very poorly interested in you, go for ultra-relevant Twitter users.

There are two types of twitter users you can target: people who have the power to help your business grow and the average user who is a potential customer. Whichever type you choose depends on your goals and what you want to get from Twitter.

Generally I’m more in favor in targeting twitter users who can best promote my business interests so you can get customers/buyers/readers through their efforts instead of your own. Potential end-users/customers are equally important although you’ll have a tougher time trying to determine their level of interest in your website/product.

Yes, you can use keywords to track tweets and find prospects on Twitter directories but interacting with each and every prospect (there are thousands out there) takes a lot of time and energy. I would prefer networking with influencers who can promote my site/brand in and outside of Twitter because they have a built-in audience and a platform.

Mass following can get you followers. But it doesn’t drastically improve your reputation, no matter how attractive a high follower count looks. A mass follower tweeting out a link is very different from an authority in the field endorsing a link by putting it in a tweet. The influencer is followed by a targeted list of other taste-makers.

The core of influence will spiral outwards based on the initial endorsement. This is more powerful than a link sent out to an auto-follow audience. Sure, you can easily get traffic but your tweets are not as effective as a voice that is respected by your target market.

So who should you network with? Not just end-users with your keyword in their bio. But bloggers, webmasters, publishers, journalists and business owners. People who work in your field and own web sites that can send you links and traffic. You can focus on networking with the superstars in your field but don’t ever forget about less famous people. This article by Brett Borders offers a good explanation of why you shouldn’t ignore the average Twitter user.

So in essence, you should use Twitter as a relationship building tool to extract benefits from a core group of influencers who are relevant to your business/website. Network actively with the right Twitter users, talk to them, spread their links, give them feedback, support their content. Be a participant in their Twitter experience.

If you do this long enough, you will eventually make them comfortable with helping you or promoting your stuff either on Twitter or away from it.

If someone talks to me very often on Twitter, shares my content or points me to good resources, I’m more than willing to retweet their stuff. Especially if its great content. I wouldn’t think twice about it. The desire to reciprocate is a very powerful instinct.

And if you want to talk about ‘going viral’, just a few retweets from several users with responsive audiences and your link will get all the momentum it needs. You don’t need to build up an account with tens of thousands of users only to send your message out to people who aren’t even half-interested in your content.

You will gradually grow your business or website by getting more readers, clients or buyers through the help of that core group. And after you’ve achieved some success, people will naturally start to follow you on Twitter. And these are the best kinds of Twitter followers to have, people who opt-in because they are interested in you or your work.

Then you can concentrate on these new batch of followers and by interacting with them, turn them into people who will actively support your content or initiatives. Many of them might be site owners or bloggers as well so this is a great way to network and learn if you’re looking for some help to improve your core business offerings.

In terms of making money indirectly or directly through Twitter, I’ve realized that the no. of Twitter followers you have is not always proportional to the income you’ll make.

It’s not necessary to inflate your Twitter follow count through an automated game of mass following. But I understand why people do it. It’s the same old strategy used on Myspace, Facebook and pretty much any social site where people can ‘friend’ each other and capture attention. The mentality is go for maximum volume and hook the few that will listen.

You can go down that route if you want but I think you can easily achieve the same results and more by cultivating a high quality list of followers and networking smartly with the right people. Marketing on Twitter does not just involve getting as many followers as you can.

Think beyond that. If you want followers, you should get them to come to you. You don’t have to chase after them. It’s devastatingly easy once you learn how to leverage other users with established audiences and create bait that entices people to opt-in because of interest.

What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment below orTalk to me on Twitter!

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Google PageRank Doesn’t Matter. Can We Stop Talking about it Now?

I build websites and develop them for fun and profit. The wellspring and catalyst for both factors is people or what we call traffic.

The more people visit my web site, the more money I can possibly make, and perhaps the more fun I can possibly have.

Today, many websites had their Google PageRank reduced and many bloggers have been speculating about the causes.

Introspection is often forced. We don’t think about sustainability and our actions until unfavorable circumstances arises. If you only consider how a PageRank shift will negatively affect you after it has happened, you’re already screwed.

It’s all very simple to me. Google is an factor that is outside of your control. Sure, you can follow their rules or adjust your behavior to fit in but that still doesn’t put Google within your palm. What do good entrepreneurs do with uncontrollable factors? They create what-if contingency plans to accommodate for possible loss.

Keep this point in mind: People can do whatever they want to you and they often will. You however have the power to determine how you want to react to their actions. Google will adjust its PageRank scores in a way they deem fit (it’s their toy after all) and ultimately you must decide how you will cope with the possible results.

If your ad revenue is affected just because PageRank changes, then you’re not doing something right. Not exploring the right monetization options. Not having a long term business plan. Not making full use of the traffic you have. Not getting the right advertisers who know the value of your site.

And all these are factors within your control. Who cares what Google thinks about content or site quality? People are the ones who visit your site and decide if its worth reading or recommending to someone else. Google doesn’t own the way you write or think. They don’t influence the type of content you decide to put out.

I have never sold an ad based on my meager PageRank. Advertisers have approached me and have told me directly that they are interested in my websites because I rank for key terms relevant to their business and because I easily pull in a heck of a lot of targeted traffic that is likely to convert. And that’s what matters.

So what if PageRank weakens your position on a ranking list or advertising network? You don’t need systems that use PageRank as a metric for measuring comparative value. Really, you don’t need them at all. There are literally hundreds of different ways to build your brand and get valuable traffic from a variety of other sources.

Stop complaining. Pagerank is simply a webmaster fetish. It’s a inside joke that’s gone too far. Washington Post and Forbes were penalized. But do you really think Aunt Mary or Uncle Joe will give a toss about it? They’ll still type in the URL or click on the bookmark icon faithfully because they want to get the info-fix they need.

And that says a lot about creating remarkable brands that are trusted by your target market. Brands that bring in direct repeat traffic in the long run, despite unpredictable algorithm changes by corporations beyond comprehension.

I don’t see any point in blogging about PageRank drops or updates (yes, I’m guilty). I really didn’t want to write about this but I just couldn’t help ranting after seeing so many oh my god Pagerank dropped! posts all over the web today.

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Brian Pasch Invites NJ Business Owners To Free SEO and Internet Marketing Briefing

Pasch, CEO of the Pasch Consulting Group, is holding a free SEO and Internet Marketing briefing in Red Bank on April 28, 2009 at 6:30pm. The event will cover the most cost-effective and results oriented Internet Marketing Strategies for New Jersey business owners.

There are only a few spots left for New Jersey business owners to register for the Executive SEO Briefing that will be held at the Red Bar and Lounge. The Executive Briefing is free but participants must signup in advance using this special registration link: http://biznik.com/events/internet-marketing-best-practices.

“In a challenging economy, executive officers and business owners are looking for cost effective ways to promote their businesses, and Internet Marketing should be tops on their list”, says Pasch.

Brian will discuss how business owners can leverage the hottest online tools like Facebook, Twitter, press releases and social networking sites to grow their customer base.

If you would like more information regarding this event, contact Carrie Valentine at 732-450-8200 or email at carrie@paschconsulting,com. Additional event information is also provided on the registration link.

There will be a cash bar and food will be available. Attendees are responsible for their own food and drinks. Red will be featuring a ½ priced wine by the bottle special for those dining after the mixer.

About Brian Pasch of the Pasch Consulting Group

Brian Pasch, CEO is an 18-year veteran of the direct marketing industry. His career has spanned both management and technology roles. PCG continually tests new digital marketing strategies which can provide a cost effective channels for business advertising and lead generation. Brian Pasch and his staff are currently rating the effectiveness of the top social networking and blogging portals.

PCG works for and with an ever-growing number of business large and small from all over the country to maximize results of their digital marketing efforts.

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UK politicians use SEO for rebuttal

The UK's Conservative party used search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to draw viewers to its rebuttal of Alistair Darling's budget proposal

If there was ever any question about the power of search engine optimization (SEO) it should be long gone after news has surfaced that politicians in the UK are using keywords to draw online viewers to their website.

The UK's Guardian newspaper reports that in an attempt to gain viewership to its "live rebuttal" of the Labour Party's budget on Wednesday, the UK's Conservative party purchased numerous keywords which would redirect people searching for terms related to the budget.

Jeremy Hunt, one of the Conservative members of Parliament, said the party chose this tactic because so many people go to Google to learn more information about something like a budget proposal.

"We understand that it's important for us to serve up our views in different formats, and Google is one of the first places people go to when trying to find information on a given subject," he told the paper.

Hunt went on to say that the group's recent foray into search engine optimization (SEO) is " a perfect example of how political parties should be using the internet."

It would appear that the UK is ahead of the curve in terms of using search engine optimization (SEO) for things beyond the business world. Recent reports noted that the government's Office of Security and Counterterrorism would be teaching search engine optimization (SEO) to some Islamic groups in an attempt to reduce the ranking of so-called "radical Islamic" organizations.

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8 Ways On How to Dominate Google using Search Engine Optimisation

It is very important to know how to improve your Google rank, usingsearch engine optimization and is a vital part of being successful with your websites. Most people use search engines to find what they’re looking for, Google is the leading search engine. If you want people to find your site on the internet, you need to use SEO in order to get high search engine rankings. These eight tips will help you achieve that.

1.Develop good content!

As the saying goes, content is king. The importance of having high quality, relevant content that is updated regularly cannot be understated. If you have a quality website, it makes all the other steps easier.

2.Write articles

Submitting articles has become one of the most popular methods to drive traffic to your website. Not only do the articles generate traffic, they provide non-reciprocal links, which are the most valuable kind of links according to Google’s ranking system. Make sure the content is relevant to your site, and that the quality of writing is as high as what is on the website; these articles are your best advertisement for what your site has to offer.

3.Use smart, targeted keywords

Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into a search engine to find what they’re looking for. The keywords you choose will define your site and who see it. Know your niche and who you want to reach. Research your target audience, research your competitors, both successful and unsuccessful and learn both from their successes and mistakes. You can also maximize your keywords by optimizing different pages within your website to different keyword phrases.

4.Use directories

Directories are a fast and easy way to get non-reciprocal links. There are hundreds of directories that you can submit your URL to for free. It is time-consuming, but this search engine optimization tool is worth it for the traffic it builds and how it will improve your Google rank. Most directories are edited and maintained, and your posting must be approved. While the sheer number of directories may seem daunting, try applying to 5 per day – you’ll have over 1500 listings after a year.

5.Don’t forget your meta tags and HTML code

While optimizing your website content for the proper keyword density is an obvious choice, don’t forget about the text that you don’t see, but Google does. Good search engine optimization includes adjusting all of your meta tags and HTML code to also reflect your chosen keywords. If you have a website about dog breeds, why label a picture “photo 1” when you can label it “purebred Yorkshire Terrier at play”. These are a great way to up your keyword density without making the content sound unnatural.

6.Use PPC advertising

Pay-per-click advertising is not the steal it once was, with popularity of the search engine optimization tool driving prices up, but it can still be a valuable and cost-effective method of improving your ranking when used properly.

7.Get a site map

An easy way to make the most of your search engine optimization is to ad a site map to your website. You can either have an actual webpage that can be used by both your viewers and Google, or you can also use an XML file, which, while not visible to the public, will also Google to easily spider your site. Google offers free tools and scripts to help you easily build a site map.

8.The last point, number 8 is the most important: TAKE ACTION.

All the reading in the world, all the research in the world means nothing if we do not take action; massive concerted action using a plan that includes all of the other 7 points.

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Online Bloggers should host your blog On your own site?

With so many people deciding to start blogging, one of the first questions they ask is, "Where should it go?" I get that question all the time, but especially from those savvy in organic search marketing, because they are concerned about the links coming into the blog counting for improved search rankings. Should they be?

I say no. Not everyone agrees with me, and they might be smarter than me, but here's my reasoning.

If you host your blog on your own site, that's beneficial for your site's search rankings, because all the links you get to your blog raise the perceived importance of your site. That was my thinking when I set up my blog on my Web site and I think it worked just fine.

But in retrospect, I think setting my blog up elsewhere would have worked just fine, also. If I had set up my blog on a separate Web site, even a free one like Blogger, I'd have attracted links to my blog, which would improve the blog's perceived importance, and my blog would be linking to my Web site anyway, passing along value to my Web site. In addition, when someone searched for me, I'd have two sites coming up in the results instead of just one.

Which approach works better? Who knows? It might make no difference at all.

Which, unfortunately, leads us back to our original question. Where should you host your blog? I think you should look at non-search factors to make your decision.

If you are the kind of person who likes to tinker with the look and feel of your blog, and doesn't mind getting your hands dirty installing software, grab WordPress or Movable Type and have at it. Go install the blogging software on your site and customize to your heart's content.

But if you think you need to wash your hands after handling a tar file, you're better off using something simple, regardless of where it's hosted. If you are fine with picking between the available styles and haven't ever changed the default wallpaper on your computer, don't drive yourself nuts now. It will just set up an impediment that keeps you from blogging.

It's more important that you start blogging and that you write stuff that people want to read. I think if you do that, then you'll get attention and it will help you. Whether the attention comes straight to your Web site or takes a slight detour along the way isn't that important. If you're blog is good, it won't matter where you host it.

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The Search Engine Optimization for Beginning guide

The Internet is the biggest place that you can go to buy or sell anything. There are always people looking to make a purchase so it makes sense that if you have a business you should strategize to market to them. There is an almost constant supply of people who are ready to buy what you have to offer. The trick is getting them to notice you.

Search engine optimization is a great way that you can generate additional customers to your online business. When people do an online search they use a search engine. There are literally thousands of websites for people to choose from when they get the results. You need to ensure that your website comes up in the top of the search engine results.

There is interesting studies done that prove that most visitors to websites don’t make a purchase on their first time vesting your site. You need to get as many people to your website as possible. You can do this by increasing your site on the search engine results by using search engine optimization. One key strategy to use to keep people returning to your site is to provide visitors with lots of free information that they can use.

One way to help drive your website up higher in the searching lists is by using search engine optimization. Search engines use special software that reaches out and locates the keywords and Meta tags from websites all around the Internet. They take this information and based on the keywords will rank the sites. These rankings are how the results will be given to people who enter those words during a search.

Meta tags are important because they indicate what your site is about while providing the terms that are used for searches. You’ll sometimes see Meta tag phrases appear on the search results as well as on the top of the site pages. Meta tags are made up of a couple of sentences or groups of words (keywords) that describe your site. Meta tags are typically less than 25 words and are used by the search engines to rate your site.

The keywords are important because this is how you will be ranked. Most people never look beyond the first couple of pages of returned results of an online search. This means that you must get your site in the top three ranking pages in order to be successful at search engine optimization and drive business to your site. The most important page of your site is your home page also sometimes called your “landing page”.

It is of utmost importance to properly choose your keywords. These words, if chosen properly, can actually help to drive business to your site. Do not take search engine optimization lightly. Keywords need to be specific. They can also be phrases rather than one single word. Try to narrow down your keywords so that you’ll get the best results from search engine optimization. For example a travel site may consider using keywords like “travel” or “vacation” yet the resutlst for these broad terms will be enormous. Instead, narrow your keywords down making them as specific as possible. In this case you could use “Bahama cruise” or other much more specific search terms.

There are literally hundreds of keywords that could probably be used to describe your site and products. However it is important to reduce your list by choosing the ones that are most important and using them as both keywords on the copy of your website and in Meta tags of the pages. When you can get the hang of search engine optimization you’ll be able to greatly increase the visitors to your site and therefore create more sales. If you are unsure about using search engine optimization on your website hire a good SEO company to take care of your online marketing needs.

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Search Engine Optimization 10 Mistakes you shoud know

Here are the Top Ten Mistakes in Search Engine Optimization:

1. Wrong Keywords are targeted – this is the most common mistake in Search Engine Optimization, even most experienced Search Engine Optimization experts make it. Most of the keywords chosen by the people for their websites are descriptive for their website, but they are too far from average users mind. For example for a relationship website the keyword ‘relationship guide’ won’t work even tough it contains the keyword ‘relationship.’ On the other hand ‘dating advice’ will work easily.

2. Using Java Script Menus – search engine do not read JavaScript, so build your website accordingly. You should go for sitemap i.e. putting your links in a noscript tag. Once doing so all your links will be crawable.

3. Flash website without html as alternate – one thing you should remember is that flash websites are attractive but not to search engines. If you want your Flash based website to be loved by the search engines then provide an html versions. The reason why search engine don’t like Flash sites is because spider can’t read Flash content and therefore can’t index it.

4. Title Tags are ignored – very often people leave <> tag empty. Instead leaving it empty this is one of the best place to have a keyword, because it not only help you out in optimization but also the text in the <> tag shows in the search results as your page title.

5. Meta-tags are past – it is a common myth that Search Engine Optimization is all about getting your Meta keywords and description correct. Meta tags are long gone now they are past and don’t except your website will be ranked well because of adding Meta keywords and description.

6. Ignoring URLs – URL plays an important role in your websites promotion. It is possible to have high rank even without keywords in the URL. But if you have keywords in the URL, (file name, domain name as part of the URL) gives you an additional advantage. For MSN and Yahoo keywords in URL are more important. Even for Google weight of URLs with keywords is more than that of the URLs without keywords.

7. Less keyword in content – put keywords wherever it makes sense and focuses more on keywords. It will be better to highlight them or make them bold.

8. Choose backlinks wisely – one of the most common fallacies is that more backlinks are always better. Because of this many web masters go for links with forum, newsgroup, link farm etc. ultimately leading the site to be banned. What you really need is quality backlinks.

9. Images for Headlines – an image in the headline can make your website look unique, but not in terms Search Engine Optimization. For search engines images in menus and headline are big mistakes because menu links and h2, h2 tags are important for SEO. If you are not sure how your h1, h2 tag will look like or you are afraid of that it will look horrible, try improving or modifying them in stylesheet instead of going for an image.

10. Consistency and maintenance – in the last but not least, most important to get rank in search engine is daily updates. To be successful optimize your site permanently and keep an eye on competition.

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The SEO Trends for 2009 you should Read and Know

Following the pace of change relating to search engine optimization — or SEO as it’s often called — can be dizzying.

Sure, there are landmark changes every once in a while that almost everyone hears about; Google’s introduction of “universal search”, in May 2007, is one example.

But Google says they made more than 400 changes to the ranking algorithm last year. Who can keep up with that?!

Luckily, you don’t have to keep up with every detail. But there are some important SEO trends you should know about as we go further into 2009. I’ll break the list down into two sections — Strategy and Tactics and Industry/Big Picture Trends - and then turn it over to you at the end.

Industry/Big Picture Trends

1. Increased SEO Awareness

SEO used to be something akin to voodoo; the only people who understood it were the ones doing it. But now it seems everyone knows about SEO. (Heck, even Wal-Mart offers SEO services!) As more small business owners become aware of what SEO is and why you should be doing it, competition should increase and put a premium on smart decision-making when it comes to doing SEO in-house or hiring a consultant.

2. Moving SEO In-house

On that note, in-house SEO has never been more popular than it is now, and that trend should continue into 2009. The upcoming SMX West search marketing conference even has an entire day devoted to in-house SEO. Companies big and small are recognizing the need for and value of having dedicated staff to recommend and implement SEO strategies.

3. SEO Consultants and Firms Booked Up

Many of us who don’t work in-house have never been busier than we are now. Because of trend No. 1 above, small business owners are hunting far and wide for SEO help. Purely anecdotal evidence, but something that many fellow SEO friends are experiencing: I usually get 2-3 emails a month from small business owners looking to hire an SEO. Last week alone I received five. There’s big demand and a lot of SEOs will be booked up.

4. It’s Google’s World

Google has dominated the SEO landscape for years, and their lead over Yahoo and Live Search is only getting bigger. There are several companies that try to track market share, and their numbers differ. But they all agree that between 60-70% of searches happen at Google. That doesn’t mean you should put all your SEO eggs in Google’s basket, but it does mean if you’re not being found on Google, you’re not being found.

5. SEO Tools & Automation

Hoping to take advantage of the growing interest in SEO, and the difficulty in finding the right consultant, more companies and individuals are creating online tools that automate portions of an SEO analysis. While some of these tools offer helpful data at a basic level, what matters most is how you use the data they provide.

6. SEO Scams

The downside of increased interest in SEO is that many small business owners will continue to spend money making unethical scam artists rich. $99/month for 500 directory links? $200 for search engine submission services? Don’t do it. Read what several search industry leaders had to say about SEO scams, and make sure this is one trend you avoid in 2009.

Strategy & Tactical Trends

7. Content = Authority (Still)

Links are the currency of SEO, and content is what attracts the links you need to rank well. When you rank well, you have authority. If you run a service-based business, you must be giving away your knowledge and expertise in the form of articles, blog posts, or other unique content that will attract links. If you run a retail web site, this still applies. Follow Amazon’s lead; I think they’re the SEO-smartest retailer online.

8. Content Variety …

I mentioned Google’s universal search at the start of this article, and other search engines have also been providing blended results for some time. What this means is that the Google search results page is no longer a list of 10 web page links; it now includes videos, news articles, blog posts, images, and more. In turn, this means that SEO isn’t just about tweaking your web site; it’s about creating and optimizing whatever forms of content make sense for your business and industry.

9. … Especially Video

The numbers are astonishing. YouTube gets more searches than Yahoo. About 100 million people watched videos on YouTube in October, and the average viewer watched 92 videos that month. eMarketer just reported that video is the number one tactic that US marketers will be focusing on in 2009. If you’re not doing it, chances are your competition will be.

10. Personalized Search Results

Personalization of search results has been simmering for a couple years now, but has started going mainstream recently. Google is leading the way with things like SearchWiki and Preferred Sites. Plus, things like your location, your recent searches, and which datacenter your search gets sent to can also impact the 10 search results you see at any given moment. It will continue to become more unusual to see the same 10 results when you and a friend in another state do the same search.

This renders ranking reports borderline useless. In other words, it’s no longer about whether your business is ranking for a certain search term at, say #2 in Google. Traffic and conversions are what you should be tracking, not what number you rank at for a specified term.

11. Local Search and Mobile Search

Mobile search has been on the way for years, but it never arrived. Until now. Mobile search used to be as fun as root canal, but the growth of smartphones - fueled by the iPhone - means mobile search is more enjoyable, more productive, and more popular than ever before. If your business appeals to people who might be searching on the go, local SEO should be a high priority for you in 2009.

12. Value of Your Audience and Community

Social media (sites such as Facebook and Twitter) isn’t going anywhere. And more of your potential customers are using it to make connections. You should be, too. By being active in online communities, you can develop an audience (look at the 38,000 followers Zappos has on Twitter!). When you do it right, that audience will help you push out your content (see No. 7 above), link to your content on occasion, tell their friends about you, and become your de facto marketing department.

Few small businesses will suddenly find themselves with 38,000 Twitter followers, but don’t underestimate the value of connecting with even 25, 50, or 100 people in the right online community.

What Others Say

Speaking of community: While writing this article, I asked my audience of Twitter followers to share their thoughts on SEO Trends for 2009. Here’s what they said.

@jfaris

@midnighttango

@MikeTek (read this one from the bottom up!)

@SimonHeseltine

@FrankReed

@lucasng

@Matt_Siltala

@karriflatla

They’ve had their say. I’ve had mine. Your turn: What SEO trends do you expect to see in 2009?

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How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs?

I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to make money from blogging.

I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to make money from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.

The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do 2005 has seen many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the methods that bloggers are currently using to make money through blogs.

Income Streams for Bloggers - How to Make Money Blogging

Advertising Programs - Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google - Adsense. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks, Text Link Ads.

Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, Bidvertiser, Fastclick and Value Click (to name just some of the options) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (YPN is only available to US publishers).

Lastly there’s BlogAds - one of the first blog specific ad networks.

RSS Advertising - The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point - but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.

Sponsorship - In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month - one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases - as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies - either in one off or a regular fashion - and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.

Affiliate Programs - There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.

Digital Assets - Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future - in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.

Blog Network Opportunities - with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks - bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging - by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks - there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself - blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.

Business Blog Writing Opportunities - as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties - but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.

Non Blogging Writing Opportunities - Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors - this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!

Donations - Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.

Flipping Blogs - Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ - or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).

Merchandising - My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising - quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales - especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details - but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.

Consulting and Speaking - While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work - his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago - but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.

As time rolls on there are more and more ways that bloggers make money from their blogs opening up. Feel free to suggest your own ideas and experiences in comments below.

Also check out these resources on how to set up a profitable blog:

• ProBlogger the Book - where I and Chris Garrett sum up all of the basic tips about starting up a blog in the one volume.
• Blog Mastermind Blog Mentoring Program - one of the best coaching and training course going around on blogging.
• Become a Blogger Videos - a free series of videos that talks new bloggers through how to set up a blog. Easy to understand and best of all, free.
• Blog Profits Blueprint - a free report on how to build profitable blogs.

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How Using Website Analytics To Measure your SEO Success

I’ve previously discussed why rankings are a poor measure of success, but only touched upon how to instead use web analytics to measure SEO success. My hope is that once you have a good grasp of what to review and how to use that info, you’ll be more inclined to wean yourself (and your clients) off rankings reports once and for all!

For purposes of this article, let’s assume that you’ve already optimized your website for a number of keyword phrases across a variety of pages within your website. Let’s also assume that you’ve kept a list of those phrases handy, as you’ll need to refer back to them. In addition, let’s assume you’re using Google Analytics since more companies appear to be moving in that direction.

While heavy-duty analytics programs can be quite daunting at first because there’s so much data provided, for SEO purposes you can concentrate on just a few key areas when starting out. The place to start is the “traffic sources” section—more specifically, the “search engines” and the “keywords” sub-sections.

Clicking on the search engines sub-section will show you all the search engines that brought visitors to your website. If you’re running AdWords campaigns, be sure to click the “non-paid” link so that you can differentiate your organic traffic from your paid (you will have had to previously linked your Adwords account with your Analytics account in order for this to work). If you’ve done a decent job with your SEO, you’ll likely see most of the search engine traffic comes from Google, then Yahoo, then MSN with a bunch of smaller search engines trailing behind.

You can see how you’re doing with your keywords in all the search engines as a whole by then clicking the “dimension” dropdown box, and setting it for “keywords.”

This will show you all the keyword phrases that drove traffic to your website. As above, if you’re also doing paid search campaigns, be sure to click the tab that says “non-paid” so that you’re only looking at organic traffic. Depending on how many keywords are showing up, you may want to change your settings to show you 100 rows at a time (or more) so that you can have a good snapshot. By default, you’ll see the keyword phrases that have brought the most traffic at the top.

Are you seeing the keyword phrases (or some variation) for which you originally optimized? If they are not readily apparent, scroll down to the bottom and put an exact phrase or a word from one of your optimized phrases into the “find keyword: containing” box. Searchers use a variety of phrases at the search engines so you’re likely to see numerous related phrases that go beyond the exact ones for which you optimized. This is a good thing, and something that you don’t get from ranking reports.

For example, when reviewing the keyword phrases driving traffic to one of our clients’ websites, I found over 100 variations of one phrase for which we optimized, and they were all highly relevant to what the client offers.

Next, you’ll want to see which pages of your site are bringing keyword traffic and whether they are the specific ones for which you optimized. To view this, click on the “content overview” section and then on the right hand side of the page, under “landing page optimization” click on “entrance keywords.” This allows you to view specific stats for each page of your site.

The first screen is the entrance keywords for the page that receives the most pageviews (typically your home page), but you can click to other pages via the drop down box that says “content.”

If you don’t immediately see a page for which you are interested in viewing entrance keywords, you can type a word that you know is in the URL of that page in the search box that’s contained in the content dropdown. So if you’re looking for a page that has a file name of /green-widgets.php you can type just “green” or “widgets” into the search box and you’ll see all pages that have that word in the file name.

Now you should be able to see all the entrance keywords for that page. Are they ones (or variations of) those for which you optimized? If so, then your SEO is taking hold! If not, you’ll want to determine why. Perhaps it’s just too soon after your SEO work was completed. Perhaps they’re highly competitive phrases which will need more anchor text links pointing in.

Rankings don’t always equal traffic, and vice-versa

Something interesting that I’ve noticed a lot lately is that while my optimized pages are getting good search engine traffic for their optimized keywords, they may not show up in Google when I do a spot check of rankings. This is especially true of newly optimized pages. It seems that this could very well be personalized search in action. While I might not see the pages ranking in Google, others obviously are as the web analytics don’t lie. Had I been relying on rankings reports to measure our success, I would be thinking that not much was happening yet.

Of course, the best indicator of SEO success is conversions. Those can be measured via your analytics as well, so you’ll want to be sure to have all your forms’ thank you pages set up as conversion goals. That way, when you’re viewing the “traffic sources -> keyword” data, you can also click the “goal conversion” tab and learn very easily which phrases convert for you.

For those keyword phases that you find convert very well, you can work on additional optimization efforts to gain even more traffic. For phrases that don’t convert well, you may want to think about why they’re not converting. It’s possible that they’re simply too general, and thus you’re pulling in people who are just in the research phase, or it might be that they don’t accurately describe what you offer on your website.

Don’t forget about old-fashioned conversions!

In addition to using your web analytics, don’t forget to take note of any increases in emails and phone calls. That’s the best way to know if your SEO campaign is going as planned. Our clients typically call us up very happy within the first month or two to let us know that their phone has been unusually busy all of a sudden. This usually makes them happier than any ranking reports we used to send!

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The Main Reasons Why Rankings Are Just A Poor Measure Of Success

Are you still measuring your SEO success by the rankings you obtain? If so, you need to stop—right now!

Here’s why:

1. Rankings are constantly fluctuating. You might check rankings one minute, then check again a few minutes later and see different results.

2. Search results are sometimes geotargeted. The search engines know where you’re located by your IP address, and if they want they can (and I believe they do) sometimes point you to pages that are closer to where you are searching from, as they assume those results might be more beneficial to you.

3. Personalized search. If you’re logged into your Google or Yahoo account, you may very well be getting search results that are specifically targeted to your own preferences. It’s called personalized search, and it is a reality these days. As people use Gmail, Google Analtyics, Google AdWords, or any other free Google toy, Google learns more about you and may make specific recommendations based on this knowledge. Think about how Amazon is always making personalized recommendations for you. It wouldn’t surprise me if Google and Yahoo become more Amazon-like with their recommendations in the near future. The end result is that no two people will see the same rankings, making them an even more worthless measurement than they already are.

4. Rankings don’t equal targeted traffic. Heck, rankings don’t always even equal un-targeted traffic! If you or your SEO company optimizes your pages for keyword phrases that nobody’s searching for, your optimization efforts will all be wasted. And if you’re measuring success by how you rank for those useless keywords, you may be thinking you’re successful when you’re really not. This is actually one of the oldest tricks in the book for unscrupulous (or incompetent) SEO companies to use. They fulfill their end of the bargain—get you rankings—and you’re left scratching your head wondering why your website is still a ghost town.

5. Rankings don’t equal conversions or sales. Along the same lines of #4, all the high rankings in the world won’t matter if they don’t increase your bottom line somehow. If you receive lots of untargeted traffic, or no traffic at all, your sales will remain static.

What should you be measuring instead?

The things that matter, of course—the targeted traffic, but even more important than that—the conversions and sales. Yeah, it was nice in the old days when we could say we did our job by running ranking reports each month and pointing out all the increases to our clients. But that’s simply not going to fly these days. Today, you have to be able to show your clients a positive return on their SEO investment, or you’re just not doing your job properly.

Get with the program and start measuring the things that matter.

Educate your clients or your CEO as much as possible. It can certainly be a difficult concept for some of them to grasp, as rankings are often a vanity thing for them. But once you convince them of the lack of merit in measuring rankings, you’ll be free to throw your rank checking software out the window once and for all and be on your way to true search engine success!

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21 Top SEO and Techniques Tips for Small businesses

Small businesses are growing more aware of the need to understand and implement at least the basics of search engine optimization. But if you read a variety of small businesses blogs and Web sites, you’ll quickly see that there’s a lot of uncertainty over what makes up “the basics.” Without access to high-level consulting and without a lot of experience knowing what SEO resources can be trusted, there’s also a lot of misinformation about SEO strategies and tactics.

This article is the second in a SEO checklist specifically for small business owners and webmasters. Naturally, this week addresses the “Do’s”—things to make sure you include whether you’re hiring an SEO company or doing it yourself.

Small Business SEO Checklist: The Do’s

1. Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.

2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

3. Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company. It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they discussed, and so forth.

4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great Web resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can read. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, Jennifer Laycock’s Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are three I’ve read and recommend.

5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.

6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.

7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

9. Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.

10. Open up a PPC account. Whether it’s Google’s AdWords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing or something else, this is a great way to get actual search volume for your keywords. Yes, it costs money, but if you have the budget it’s worth the investment. It’s also the solution if you didn’t like the “Be patient” suggestion above and are looking for instant visibility.

11. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta altogether if you’d like; it’s close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.

12. Write for users first. Google, Yahoo, etc., have pretty powerful bots crawling the web, but to my knowledge these bots have never bought anything online, signed up for a newsletter, or picked up the phone to call about your services. Humans do those things, so write your page copy with humans in mind. Yes, you need keywords in the text, but don’t stuff each page like a Thanksgiving turkey. Keep it readable.

13. Create great, unique content. This is important for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you’re selling the same widget that 50 other retailers are selling, and everyone is using the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer, this is a great opportunity. Write your own product descriptions, using the keyword research you did earlier (see #9 above) to target actual words searchers use, and make product pages that blow the competition away. Plus, retailer or not, great content is a great way to get inbound links.

14. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.

15. Build links intelligently. Submit your site to quality, trusted directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Business.com, Aviva, and Best of the web. Seek links from authority sites in your industry. If local search matters to you (more on that coming up), seek links from trusted sites in your geographic area—the Chamber of Commerce, etc. Analyze the inbound links to your competitors to find links you can acquire, too.

16. Use press releases wisely. Developing a relationship with media covering your industry or your local region can be a great source of exposure, including getting links from trusted media web sites. Distributing releases online can be an effective link building tactic, and opens the door for exposure in news search sites. Related bonus tip: Only issue a release when you have something newsworthy to report. Don’t waste journalists’ time.

17. Start a blog and participate with other related blogs. Search engines, Google especially, love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. Beyond that, there’s no better way to join the conversations that are already taking place about your industry and/or company. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Related bonus tip: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts. If that’s not possible, use blog.yourdomain.com.

18. Use social media marketing wisely. If your small business has a visual element, join the appropriate communities on Flickr and post high-quality photos there. If you’re a service-oriented business, use Yahoo Answers to position yourself as an expert in your industry. With any social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam! Be an active, contributing member of the site. The idea is to interact with potential customers, not annoy them.

19. Take advantage of local search opportunities. Online research for offline buying is a growing trend. Optimize your site to catch local traffic by showing your address and local phone number prominently. Write a detailed Directions/Location page using neighborhoods and landmarks in the page text. Submit your site to the free local listings services that the major search engines offer. Make sure your site is listed in local/social directories such as CitySearch, Yelp, Local.com, etc., and encourage customers to leave reviews of your business on these sites, too.

20. Take advantage of the tools the search engines give you. Sign up for Google’s webmaster Central and Yahoo’s Site Explorer to learn more about how the search engines see your site, including how many inbound links they’re aware of.

21. Diversify your traffic sources. Google may bring you 70% of your traffic today, but what if the next big algorithm update hits you hard? What if your Google visibility goes away tomorrow? Newsletters and other subscriber-based content can help you hold on to traffic/customers no matter what the search engines do. In fact, many of the DOs on this list—creating great content, starting a blog, using social media and local search, etc.—will help you grow an audience of loyal prospects and customers that may help you survive the whims of search engines.

Your additions are welcome in the comments.

With this checklist and last week’s list of “Don’ts,” you should be able to develop a good plan of attack for your SEO efforts for your small business.

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Online Tips On How to add website shortcuts to the Windows Start Menu

Looking for a way to add program shortcuts to the Start Menu? Ever thought about adding website (URL) shortcuts to your Start Menu? It’s actually quite useful! I personally use Firefox for my browsing needs, but I still hate having to browse through my ridiculously long list of bookmarks just to open my email (yes I could just type in gmail, but I’m too lazy to type it)!

So basically with only two clicks, hence the name, you can load up any web page! Nifty, but the only problem is that you need to have that start page open whenever you want to open a new website, which basically means more than two clicks again!

If you want to simply be able to open a web site with only two clicks no matter if you have a browser window open or not, then you might try adding URLs to the Start Menu. In this way, you can pin a couple of your favorite sites and have instant access to them!

How to add website links to the Start Menu

First, you need to right-click on the Start button and click on Explore.

This will open Windows Explorer in the Start Menu folder under your user profile. If you want to be able to add the website shortcut to the Start Menu for all users, when you right-click, choose Explore All Users instead of Explore. There should be a folder called Programs also, don’t go into that folder.

Now right-click and choose New and then Shortcut.

In the box “Type the location of the item”, go ahead and type in the URL for the website you want to add. For example, type in http://www.online-tech-tips.com and click Next.

Give your shortcut a name in the “Type a name for this shortcut” box. This will be the title shown in the Start Menu and it can be whatever you like.

Click Finish and you’re done! There is one thing to remember when it comes to adding website shortcuts to the Start Menu and that is which version of the start menu are you using. If you’re using the Classic Start Menu, your link will appear at the top, above the Programs group like shown below:

However, if you’re using the normal Windows Start Menu that comes with Windows XP, by default the link will only appear when you click Start and then click on Programs like shown below.

However, that’s not what we want! We want to be able to click on Start and then simply click on our link, not have to click on Programs first! Luckily it’s very easy to get your link into the main section of the Start Menu and that is by simply opening the programs list and then dragging and dropping the URL to where you want it.

Drag it between any two programs listed and you’ll see that it becomes a dark black line, meaning you can release the mouse button and it will drop it in between the other two shortcuts.

And now that’s it! Hopefully, this was not too complicated of a process! There is no need to edit the registry as some sites suggest, it can all be done via creating a simple shortcut! Enjoy!

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Using Live Writer to add social bookmarking tags

Social bookmarking is used for storing bookmarks of useful web pages on the Net. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web sites they want on their own social website account. For example, if you have a Yahoo! account, you can click the image below to add the your URL to your Yahoo! account:

It would then open your Yahoo! bookmarks page prompting you to save the link:

You could then see the bookmark on the bookmarks.yahoo.com site:

Now that you know how to use the bookmarks when you see them, let me show you how to create link icons for several bookmarking sites so you can put them on your own blogs or web sites. To do this on Live Writer, download the plugin from http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=d2597790-f998-46be-bbe5-caa4a007e0f0&bt=9&pl=8

Click the download button as shown above and then run the file once it is completed downloading.

After running the file, open Windows Live Writer and then make a post where you want to put the icons. Click the Bookmarking Tags! plug-in under the insert panel:

Enter the URL of the site you want to bookmark, a descriptive title and “text to show” that will act as a label on the left side of the icons. You may choose from the available bookmarking sites but all are selected by default. Click done to create the icons:

If you look on the source code, the plug-in automated the generation of the code and the icons are preloaded also, so you don’t have to figure out the right URL syntax for each bookmarking service.

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