Using a Blog, RSS Feeds, Twitter and Facebook
By now, anyone who spends time on the web trying to market their business has heard the the somewhat nebulous term “Web 2.0 Network”. If you are somewhat confused by the many definitions of the term, don’t worry. It’s really just a general tag for the RSS connection of social networks and blogs. Even better, you don’t need to be an internet marketing guru to create one of these networks. All you have to do is follow a few simple steps and you can significantly increase the visibility of your website and the number of people reading your blog. Take a moment and do the following:
1) Create a blog. If you don’t already have one, create a blog and attach it to your main website. You can do this using WordPress or any of the other free and easy to use blog creation programs available on the web.
2) Go to Feedburner and burn an RSS feed. Feedburner is the Google feed tool, so it will give you the added benefit of an easy connection to Google Analytics and Adsense. You can even add “Adsense for Feeds” to each of your connected RSS feeds and have an additional source of income. Once the feed is burned, start registering with RSS and blog directories to increase your exposure. Most of them are free and can be found by doing a simple search for “RSS Directories”.
3) Use the “Publicize” tool on Feedburner to connect your RSS feed to a Twitter account. This function can be found under “Socialize”. If you don’t have a Twitter Account, open one up and spend a few dollars on a follower building tool like Hummingbird to build your network. You can also find code for an RSS subscription box on Feedburner. Add it to your website to help build a contact list for future posting. There’s even an email option for subscribers.
4) Connect your Twitter account to Facebook. Once again, if you don’t have a Facebook account, open one. There isn’t an automatic friend builder tool that won’t get you shut down, but Facebook does have a number of social network games where you can build networks quickly. Mafia Wars is one of the most popular. Play for a while and add two or three thousand new friends. You’ll be surprised at how many respond to your blog posts when you make them.
Once the entire network is in place, start writing blog posts on a regular basis or hire a content writing service to do it for you. Every time you publish a post, it will show up on Twitter and Facebook, plus go out as an RSS feed to any RSS directories you register the feed with. If you want to add other social networks, start with Linked In and Digg, then connect to Technorati, Stumble Upon, and Mixx. You’ll find others by connecting the WordPress Plugin called “Sociable” to your blog.
If you connect “Google Webmaster Tools” to your blog, you can track the number of links that you acquire every time you do a blog post. Google Analytics is useful also. It will tell you where your traffic comes from. This may sound like a lot, but it’s not difficult to do. SEO companies charge hundreds of dollars for these services. If you follow the directions above and do a little a research of your own, you won’t have to pay anything.
Effective SEO – Not as Complicated as They Would Have You Believe
Search Engine Optimization has long been a realm where only those “in the know” have been able to effectively bring a website from relative obscurity to the top of search engine page one for their industry keywords. The vague explanations given for marketer attempts to stay one step ahead of the mysterious Google algorithm made sense to a lot of people because the knowledge of how to do SEO wasn’t readily available. It was widely believed that this was because the tasks were too technical. The truth is that the industry was in its infancy and no one really knew which techniques worked and which ones didn’t.
Today, that has all changed. Search Engine Optimization is not rocket science. Even the more technical aspects of the process can be handled with plug-ins on your Word Press site or by learning some basic HTML code. Most search engines don’t even look at meta tags anymore as an accurate depiction of a website. They’re too easy to alter. The quality and accuracy of your content are the primary variables in the formulas used to assign page position.
If you want to appear at the top of Search Engine Page One for your industry keywords, you will need links going back to your site, and not just any links. They need to come from sites that are credible and have legitimate page rank themselves. If you link to sites that have lower rankings than you do, they will bring you down. Think of it as climbing a ladder. You always want to reach for the rung just above you, not the one you just passed. Look carefully at the Alexa and PR rankings of a directory or link trade partner before you attach yourself to them.
Another powerful SEO tool that web-based businesses should utilize more often is the blog. If you write consistently in a blog, or have a content writing service do it for you, you will be providing the search engine spiders that index websites a steady flow of dynamic content which they will continually need to come back for. Use deep linking and anchor text in your posts and you’ll see your link count increase exponentially almost overnight.
The final item on the list of simple Search Engine Optimization tools is the press release. Don’t discount the power of the press, even if you use one of those free press release services. A press release can provide you links and traffic from the moment it’s published until weeks and sometimes months later. Set a few of them up, start writing in your blog, and pay attention to who you’re linking to. You’ll achieve high page rank in no time.
Increasing Search Hits from Your Social Circle
At least once a week, I do this exercise which involves utilizing all the neat tools I’ve picked up over the years to check where my site stands in search engine rankings. I do all the recommended submissions to article directories and social bookmarking sites to build links and I try to be vigilant about posting at least once a week on my blog. It seems to be working, because I rank pretty high with Google and Bing for my preferred keywords.
This morning, something occurred that caused me to re-evaluate my efforts in another area – social media. I received an email from a prospective service provider who had found me on Facebook. This was particularly interesting because I don’t really use my Facebook account for business. I’m a “Mafia Wars” junkie and have eight hundred friends who mainly help me collect the items I need to Level Up in New York, Bangkok, Cuba and Moscow. This woman who contacted me didn’t seem to be connected to me, so I pulled out my toolbox and started tinkering.
As it turned out, I could have found the answer without using my SEO rank-checkers and real-time analytics gadgets. It was right in front of me on Google the whole time. Scrolling down a search page for the keyword “content writing“, where I have sat comfortably in the two position for almost a year now, I noticed a listing that read “Related Links in Your Social Circle”. There, staring me in the face, was my picture and business URL, which I have listed in my profile. I found out later on that the woman who contacted me had found me in a similar manner. One of her friends was a Mafia Wars buddy of mine.
Two years ago I was asked to ghostwrite a book for a colleague of mine on the impact of social media marketing. I used the Obama Presidential campaign as a model for how you can direct market with social media, but I also emphasized a point about indirect marketing. Your “friends” on Facebook don’t want to be solicited. They want to socialize. If they’re looking for the services you provide they’ll search for them in the traditional fashion, not through the network.
Facebook has been under fire recently for being the “Big Brother” of our generation, not only watching everything we do, but allowing others access to that data. Personally, I don’t put a whole lot of information on my Facebook account. My profile has my name, where I’m from, some pictures I share with friends, and my business URL along with a description of what I do for a work. It was that piece that secured me a new content provider this morning. Others can bail on Facebook is they like, but I think I’ll work on increasing the size of my Mafia this weekend.
The Impact of the Facebook “Like” Button
The world of search marketing as we know it may be coming to an end. Do you think the folks over at Google are quaking in their boots at the newest challenge to their reign posed by those pesky social upstarts at Facebook? You bet they are. The Facebook “Like” button just might be the first major change we’ve seen to search in almost ten years.
“Linking” isn’t the only game in town any more. Backed up by the entity that has already taken over the number two position with Alexa, “Liking” might just be the wave of the future. Millions are on Facebook every day and what they like counts for a whole lot. If service providers and retailers don’t pay attention to those numbers, they will soon be on the outside looking in, no matter what Google search rankings tell them.
Of course, the “Like” data won’t be available to the general public, yet, but you can bet that the entrepreneurial spirit at Facebook will be in high gear; can you see the steam rising from Zuckerbergs forehead? On the Facebook executive profiles page it actually looks like Chanath is feeling, I don’t know, smug. I’m thinking I would be too if I developed the weapon that could slay Goliath.
Google may be a giant, but Facebook is no David. They are a many-headed monster led by some of the best minds on the planet. The past five years have been a time of huge growth for them and they have made all the right decisions on where to go next. This newest development is no surprise to anyone, including Google. Do I smell a potential collaboration?
Add the “Like Button” to your website and track the results with your analytics program, which is probably a Google tool (Hmm). In the meantime, don’t forget to keep up your link building and SEO. It’s not obsolete yet and those backlinks will always count for something, regardless of what the buzz on the net says.
Most importantly, remember that content is key. It doesn’t matter where your traffic comes from or how it’s being tracked. The content your visitors see when they get to your landing page is what will determine whether you make sales, get sign-ups, or find people who legitimately “like” you.
The Death of MySpace
For those of you who still might think that content doesn’t matter, go to the Alexa Top 500 and take a look at the most recent ranking for MySpace. Rupert Murdoch’s once dominant social network dropped out of the top ten this week. It is now ranked at a lowly eleven on the internet power chart and it will most likely drop again soon. Why? They, like all the rest of Mr. Murdoch’s enterprises, don’t care about content.
That may sound like a simplistic view but if you look at MySpace you will see a lot of flashy images, some cool apps, some great music, and nothing anywhere that actually has anything to say about the merits of the site itself. The most writing you’ll see at MySpace is the “warning” you get when you try to click an outside link.
Compare this to Facebook, the number two most visited site on the internet. Facebook has content. Those who use it post real sentences structured into real paragraphs because that is what the site encourages. Just look at the descriptions when you go to the Alexa Top 500 page. MySpace simply says “social network”. Facebook says “A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos”.
If you look at the Alexa Top Ten today you’ll see websites and search engines that have quality content. This is not the Google algorithm. Alexa is an independent service that ranks sites according to number of visits. Users determine who is on top and who slips down to obscurity. MySpace is quickly dropping off the charts because people simply are not using it.
As a writer and an intelligent consumer I get insulted when someone tries to use a sensationalist headline and no substance to get my attention. Rupert Murdoch has been doing this for years with his newspapers and built a multi-billion dollar empire. I hope he saved his money, because those tactics aren’t working anymore, at least not on the internet. MySpace is pretty but I, like most internet users these days, prefer substance.