4th July 2007

Know more! Social Media Marketing!

By : Admin

Social Media Marketing is a method of promoting a brand. The brand could be you, your product, services or your company! It involves making your presence known, strategically, across social media networks where each category has a different and intricate method for effective promotion. These various social media networks may be:

  • Digg: Digg is all about user powered content.
  • Reddit: Reddit is a source for what’s new and popular online.
  • StumbleUpon: StumbleUpon learns what you like and makes better recommendations.
  • MySpace: MySpace offers the widest variety of tools and social networking capabilities.

Social Media Marketing drives brand awareness which transforms into sales, later.

Social Media is not designed to immediately provide business but instead it provides the visibility to your brand (product/service), that it needs to ultimately convert the visitors into customers/buyers. Having a commercial presence on various social media networks provides great content and widget which serves to raise the awareness of your brand so that users remember your service for later. It provides you with a platform to share the benefits of your brand.

Social Media Marketing can be organized into the following categories:

Social Networking Sites: these sites allow you to create a powerfully diverse and engaging web presence complete with photos, articles, and bookmarks. E.g. MySpace.

Business Networking Sites: These sites are devoted to networking business people and provide direct access to upper level management / executives for sales people and for those looking to create industry connections. E.g. Jigsaw.

Social Bookmarking Sites: provides collection and organization of the sites that you choose to bookmark and allow you to share them with other others. E.g. Del.icio.us.

Content Voting Sites: these sites are used by people to vote for any content they find useful online through which the visibility of the content gains momentum. E.g. Digg.

News Sharing Sites: These sites serve as private news hubs where information is collected from blogs or other syndicated content that the user has decided to be kept up to date on. E.g. Technorati.

Collaborative Directories: These directories are compiled with recommended sites or content maintained by online volunteers e.g. Wikipedia.

Video Sharing Sites: These sites allow video sharing as video sharing is one of the foremost methods of social marketing. E.g. Youtube

Photo Sharing: These sites stand out as serious performers in this socially-driven field of photo sharing. E.g. Flickr.

With the explosion of social media in so many different forms, one might get perplexed so as to what is the right time to consider Social Media Marketing. It really depends on knowing your audience and knowing if your website is ready for the possibility of huge traffic coming from it. Other factors that worth consideration are: usage of any PPC campaign and optimization of the site.

Social Media Marketing is complicated for two reasons: no one has created a structure to work from, and there’s so much overlap in functionality of different sites, that it can be quite confusing. Moreover, there’s one general rule for using these sites as marketing tools and that is don’t spam the system.

To conclude, Social media is an art. There is no hard or fast rule as such, what all it requires is you to have an in-depth knowledge of your audience and what your web site can handle.

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4th July 2007

Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimization-II

By : Nidhi Gupta

Web Page Optimization

Once you have chosen your keyphrases, the next stage is to optimize your page for those keyphrases. You do that by positioning your keywords in strategic locations within your page. What follows is a checklist of tips and steps you must follow to optimize your page:

  • Keyphrases in the web page title:

    • Create a descriptive title for your page: Your web page title is very important because it is what the search engines display as link text as the result of a search. The title must include your main keyphrases, while at the same time it must describe your business very well and should entice readers to click on it.

    • Unless your business is big and well known (like Microsoft or Coca Cola) don’t start your page title with the name of your company. Start your title with the words search engine users will most likely use (your keyphrases)

    • Put your main keyphrase at the beginning of your page title (keyphrase prominence) and keep your keyphrase together (keyword proximity).

    • Put your second keyphrase somewhere else in the title.

    • Make the title short (8 words or less).

  • Keyphrases in your Keyword Meta Tag: Search engines rarely use the Keyword Meta Tag any more (Google completely ignores it). However, place a list of your main and secondary keywords in the Keyword Meta Tag of your page, just in case search engines decide to use them again in the future.

  • Keyphrases in your Description Meta Tag: The Description Meta Tag is still important, since some search engines use them to elaborate on the results link. Remember to:

    • Include your keyphrases (main and secondary) in your Description Meta Tag.

    • Make your description ‘descriptive’, concise and professional. Avoid using hype.

    • Make it short (25 words or less).

    • Don’t make your description sound just like a collection of keywords.

    • Keep your keyphrases together.

  • Keywords in the body of your page: It is important to use your keywords heavily on your page, since this will help the search engine determine the topic of your page. Follow these tips as much as possible, since they will help search engines determine your page’s relevance to your chosen keyphrases:

    • Use your keyphrases several times, and place them as close to the top of the page as possible.

    • Place your keyphrases between Header Tags (H1, H2 or H3) in the first two paragraphs of your page.

    • Place your keyphrases in bold type phase at least once.

    • Repeat your keyphrases often to increase your keyphrase density. Repeating your keyphrases between 5 to 10 times for every 100 words in your page is considered effective.

    • Since you have to repeat your keyphrases often, you must be especially careful not to make your text sound awkward. Your visitors should be able to read your page fluently and effortlessly. Remember that ultimately it is your readers who will decide if your page is worth the time they spend on it. A pleasant experience will make them more likely to come back.

  • Other Web Page Design Considerations: o You must make your page easy to navigate by the search engines. Search engines heavily favor text over graphics, and HTML over other editing formats.

    • Use text heavily, especially in your navigation bar. Avoid placing text in graphic format since the search engines won’t be able to read it.

    • Avoid frames. Search engines have trouble following them, and they may index only the framed content page and not the navigation frame.

    • Avoid Flash and JavaScript: search engines don’t follow either one. If you use flash, make an HTML version of your site available to your readers and the search engines. If you use a JavaScript navigation menu, include an alternate text menu at the bottom of the page, so it can be followed by the search engines.

    • Create a Site Map that includes all the pages in your site, and place a Site Map link close to the top of the homepage. When the search engine follows the site map link, it will find and index all the pages in your site!

    • If you use a left navigation bar, the search engine will read it before the body of your page. Make sure you include your most important keywords there, too.

    • Make sure that all your internal pages link to your homepage.

    • Don’t try to describe all your products or services in one page. It will confuse the search engine and dilute your page’s relevance to your selected keyphrase. Instead, create different very focused pages, each with its own content and keyphrases, and optimize them too.

This is pretty much all you have to do to make sure that your page is optimized for your chosen keywords. The next and final step to increase your site’s ranking is to get as many links to your site as possible, from quality sites that have a topic related to yours.

Get More Details At : Theinternetdigest.net

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posted in SEO/Search Engine News | 0 Comments

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