Labor Day is gone, Halloween is quickly approaching and signs of the holiday season are already starting all around. If you have yet to begin connecting with your clients regarding the holiday season then you are quickly falling behind your competition. In order to dive into the holiday season finding ways to engage your clients socially will give you the push you are looking for.

Let social media show what your customers are saying about your products!

A survey from eMarketer has shown that 27 percent of holiday shoppers last year went to Facebook and Twitter to look for gift suggestions for their friends and families. A study by ChannelAdviors indicates a hefty 83 percent of all consumers are influenced by online reviews. Making it easy for you customer to write reviews of your products, and giving them a way to link this directly to Facebook  and Twitter will not only promote your product or service to their entire friends list, it will also give customers insight to what their friends and family are shopping for.

You have to play to win

If you are not utilizing Facebook to promote for this holiday season, yesterday was the best day to start. Facebook gives us another avenue to advise our clients of our products and brand, with the simple implementation of the “Like” button. Offering incentives, such as discounts or coupons via Facebook and Twitter will capture those looking for the perfect holiday gift and give them a reason  to shop with you. Just like the lottery, having a social media widgets give you an opportunity to join the game. You must play to win!

During this holiday season, social media will make leaps and bounds in the shopping process. Great SEO and a comprehensive media campaign will put you in the game to compete and sell your products and services. The important thing is to stay on top of the latest trends and make sure you are implementing the best practices. 

In researching the SEO field I found a very helpful article. When trying to make your website successful there are a few things you can do to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

Writing in your blog: Make sure to cover topics that need are most searched for. You have to ensure you have the content that the visitors would love to read. You can use the Google Ad-words to research on the topic and the tags for your blog.

Write in a first person narrative tone: That is, write like you are directly telling the person. The blog sphere likes humane voice and a more connected, honest and truthful blog has a very good chance.Write in a way that the reader feels you have revealed all that you know and feel. This is an open source world and you have to make sure that you keep the reader in a close proximity. Connect with them and be a virtual friend.

Guest bloggers: Guest bloggers can be experts from your field or other experienced writers. You can bring in popular celebrities or a very well versed person. Just make sure that their post will increase visitors to your site. If you are popular, then you can invite guest bloggers to post an article in your site. Make sure that any content that they want to post in your website should be edited by you.

A good URL: A good URL should be short and contain enough information so that the educated people can find out what your blog holds by just reading it. A big URL is usually a byproduct of many CMS plug-ins.

Book marking your page: You can book mark your page in a lot of good bookmark websites such as delicious.com. This will help you lure traffic

Use high traffic period: When you have a linkbait in Digg, Reddit, etc. make use of that to drop 2 article of yours that show off all your writing skills on that time. This will enable the visitors to look into the blog. This will also ensure that the visitors stick around to get more from your blog. Always go back and answer to comments within 48 hours. Nothing kills the linkbait like ignorance for a long duration.

Google analytics: Google analytics is a free software that allows the viewer to look on various facts about your site. Getting the Google webmaster tool that will also help you to analyze and work on your site.

Content cramming: Google crawlers crawl to find HTML code. Therefore too much JAVA and CSS inside the html code deteriorates the crawl rate. Any java or CSS code should be written as an external file. More the merrier does not apply to this and too much code just increase those silly coding errors that although does not affect SEO, surely affects the Google crawlers.

Unique unplagiarized content: Plagiarism is a suable issue, and make sure that your content in original. There are many credible plagiarism checkers online that help you with this problem. Avoid self plagiarism.

Separate pages for every keyword: When you want to rank the KW, we create a separate webpage for each KW and include that KW in the title tag. This will enable the crawlers to indentify thetag and rank the KW accordingly.

Use title tag intelligently: Title tag must be used to help the crawlers. Include your primary KW in the title tag and nothing else. A title tag should be able to help the crawler understand what the page is about.

To read the complete article please see: http://bit.ly/qMkQ1f

Feel free to Contact Us with any questions you may have!

Jennifer Louis |  http://bit.ly/qMkQ1f | 9.19.2011

Many years ago, Google stated ten points on their Corporate Philosophy page – they were as follows:

§  Focus on the user and all else will follow.

§  It’s best to do one thing really, really well.

§  Fast is better than slow.

§  Democracy on the web works.

§  You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.

§  You can make money without doing evil.

§  There’s always more information out there.

§  The need for information crosses all borders.

§  You can be serious without a suit.

§  Great just isn’t good enough.

They are still applicable with a constant endeavor by Google to follow the stated norms and also with constant improvements in the implementation procedures.  This was reflected in the Scientific Evaluation, recently discussed by Amit  Singhal at the discussion hosted by Church Hill Club where he openly explained the testing procedure of every algorithmic update at Google.  He says that the focus has always been “DO What Is Best For The User”

All search activity starts and ends with the user.

§  The user types in the query in the search box

§  The results are displayed for the user by the search engine

§  The user decides which results to click on

It seems so simple, but there are scientific and psychological principles which this whole activity revolves around.

The three parties involved in this activity are the user (always #1), the websites which get ranked, the search engines and the search algorithms which execute this result.

The search engines want to give quality search results to their users. The website owners want their websites to be ranked as high as possible so that their website can be found by the user. And the user wants to find relevant content as fast as possible. Hence, the user is the focus at every step of the search activity.

Amit Singhal also stated that there are approx. 500 changes to the Google algorithm every year, and Google runs around 20,000 tests every year.

The answers to the following questions are considered before moving forward with the new algorithm. They are:

§  Is it good for the web eco system at large?

§  Would it benefit authors?

§  Would it benefit high quality content?

§  Would it keep the Google system simple so that it can be maintained much longer?

Google says that every algorithmic update is rigorously and scientifically tested before finalized. The website owners optimize their sites by investing time and money to be found by the user on the search engines. Each click on the search listings proves the user found something relevant and useful. Other metrics like the bounce rate, the click thru rate, time on site, pageviews, and the execution of the call for action, prove the result served the purpose of the user’s search and was considered relevant or irrelevant by the user.

Usually the first focus is on what search engines want followed by the user or potential visitor. However, the web developer and SEO’s flow of focus by should be the other way round. Construct content, design, color combo and content options – like images, videos, and texts, from the user’s perspective and then focus on the search engine bots.

SEO is not rocket science (yes an old and overused statement). It’s all very simple but still demands a lot of patience and perseverance.

§  Cater to the user by offering quality information on site

§  Make the site easy for the bots to crawl and index

§  Use the Webmaster Tools Effectively by adding and offering the right information about the site

§  Analyze the Google Analytics Data For The Metrics That Matter

§  Take corrective steps to modify the site accordingly serving the user and the bot constantly

Search is fundamental to all and is constantly evolving so SEO cannot be a one time job. As search engines keep on working on their algorithms for quality results, an SEO needs to monitor, measure and tweak the site constantly as per the user’s evolving search behavior and the changing algorithms for attaining stability for the site in search rankings and visibility.

To read this article please see: http://bit.ly/p04N80

When you need help implementing these tips, please Contact Us!

Bharati Ahuja | Content is King But the User is the Emperor | 8.30.2011

1.    Make sure your site is crawlable by using an XML sitemap, a robots.txt file, and well-structured on-site navigation.

2.    Improve your site structure by using an HTML sitemap and linking to trusted sources both within your site and outside of it.

3.    Create a solid content hierarchy by doing basic keyword research and avoiding placement of your content in rich media such as Silverlight and Flash.

4.    Use a short meta title that has fewer than 65 characters and that’s unique to each page, and try to include the targeted keyword toward the beginning of that title.

5.    Use a unique meta description tag.

6.    Create quality content (following the guidelines Bing provided earlier).

7.    When you build links, focus on keyword-relevant anchor tags that link back to quality content on your page.

8.    Create an RSS feed.

9.    Use schema.org markup.

10.  Create a user interface that prioritizes the user experiences; the search perspective on things like page load time aren’t as important as how the user responds.

11.  Encourage social sharing with the use of social buttons.

12.  Don’t cloak your website.

13.  Don’t use link farms.

14.  Don’t engage in three-way linking.

15.  Don’t duplicate content.

16.  Don’t use auto-following on the social front.

17.  Don’t use thin content.

18.  Don’t buy links.

To read the rest of this article please see:  http://bit.ly/18tipsfrombing

When you need help implementing these tips don’t hesistate to Contact Us

Rob D Young | 8.23.2011 | Bing Gives a List of 18 SEO Fundamentals

The Telegraph, a respected UK news site, has compiled the suggestions of some top SEOs in the UK. While the list touches on several vital points, it also makes a couple miss-steps. Here are the specifics.