Creating social media website profiles aimed at strengthening your personal brand is an incredibly important aspect of building your online presence. Building a strong online reputation will help you score more gigs, media interviews, conference speaking pitches, and more.

Even if you are working with a company, your clients and potential clients are inevitably going to want to know who you are and where is the first place they will check you out? They will probably search for you on Google. The idea is to control the top ten search results for your name to ensure that they are relevant and most importantly, positive. The last thing you want is for a client to find search results on the front page of Google that say negative things about you.

The easiest way to control your top ten search results is through building your online presence via social media and blogging. Some of the most important online tools you can use are Twitter, LinkedIn, video websites and social networking sites like Facebook. If you have an unusual name, it will be easy for you to control the top search results for your name but if you have a very common name, try using your middle initial as way to distinguish yourself.

Blogging

One of the most powerful ways to build authority within your niche and boost your personal brand is via blogging. If you consistently provide great content and expert opinions, you can build a very successful personal brand through blogging. Make sure to link to a profile page with your bio and name on all of your blog posts to increase search rankings for your name. Write guest blog posts for other blogs in your niche to enhance your online reputation and reach a wider audience.

Twitter

Use Twitter to contribute valuable links and connect with others in your niche. If you build up a large following of relevant users and stay active in the Twitter community, you should expect your Twitter page to rank highly in the search results. If potential clients are looking for information about you and find your Twitter account full of relevant links and expert advice, it is going to go a long way in building your online reputation.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business social media networking site that allows you to share your career history with others. It is a great way to build work contacts and allows potential clients to learn more about your qualifications, educational background, and so on.

Video Websites

If you’ve spoken at a conference or have made an online video presentation, upload it to a site like Vimeo or YouTube. When someone searches for more information about you and finds a relevant video you made, your reputation will be enhanced in the eyes of the searcher. Make sure to use your name in the video headline so the video is optimized for your personal brand.

Social Networking Sites

Now that you have filled most of the front page Google results with positive listings, you can work on adding a few neutral listings such as profiles for social networking sites like Facebook and Flickr. Better yet, find a social networking site that is relevant to your niche (i.e. Sphinn for search marketers) and actively contribute to it so you can show clients that you keep up with the latest news and trends in your field.

Keep these tips in mind in order to dominate the Google search results for your name. If you have quite a few online personalities and would prefer that some of them were not visible to your clients and potential clients, make sure to use different screen names! Optimize anything work-related with your real name to ensure that the search listings that show up when people search for you are positive and help to boost your online reputation.

Labels: social_media

Whether you want to find new link targets or get more insights and information, there are several tools out there that will help you boost your link-building efforts in a big way. Using too many tools can cause information overload but using the right set of tools will help you save time and get more out of your link-building campaigns.

Simple Analysis Tools – LinkDiagnosis

Simple analysis tools allow you to get simple information in just a few clicks of a mouse. For example, you may want to know how many links point to a certain page or which anchor text is used the most often. Simple analysis tools allow you to get insights quickly but they should never replace in-depth analysis tools. LinkDiagnosis is a simple analysis tool that can be used in conjunction with your in-depth analysis tool. Available as both a web-based tool and a Firefox plug-in, LinkDiagnosis filters out most low quality links. It provides a list of the most common anchor text as well as a list of the most popular pages of the websites you investigate.

LinkDiagnosis creates backlink profiles of small websites very quickly but for larger websites it could take up to half an hour. One of the biggest perks of LinkDiagnosis is the fact that you can download the data as a csv file and use it however you want. When it comes to getting a general backlink profile, an overview of the most important pages of a particular domain, and anchor text spreading, LinkDiagnosis is the best simple analysis tool out there.

In-Depth Analysis Tools – MajesticSEO

When you are investigating your own website or that of one of your competitors, you will need access to detailed information. In-depth analysis tools such as MajesticSEO can provide you with a broad range of data. All of the information on MajesticSEO can be downloaded in csv format. The tool is free to use for your own site but you have to pay a fee if you would like to use it to get a detailed analysis of your competitors’ websites. The only problem with MajesticSEO is that it provides so much information that it can be overwhelming for some people. However, MajesticSEO is very useful and comprehensive. Information that MajesticSEO provides includes:

• Anchor text use
• Your most popular pages
• Incoming links of a domain
• Separated view of incoming links and referring domains
• Shows only links in frames, image links, nofollow links, and redirect links
• Shows past links
• Compares your backlink history with that of your competitors
• Free bad link neighborhood check

Link Target Tools – HubFinder

Once you have thoroughly analyzed your website and the websites of your competitors, you must use tools that will help you find new link targets. HubFinder is a tool from SEOBook that looks for sites that have co-occuring links to related authoritative websites in your niche. You must be a paid member of SEOBook in order to access the HubFinder tool. However, a few features of the tool are available for free so you can tinker around with it and decide whether it’s worth the investment. In the free version of HubFinder, you can enter the links of up to ten competing websites. The tool then finds websites that link to at least two competing websites. If you add the link of your own website to the list, the tool will automatically filter out the websites that already link to you. As a result, HubFinder generates a list of websites that link to your competitors but not to you and thus serves as a great way to find link targets. All that is required of you is to filter out the low quality websites from the list. Since HubFinder uses Yahoo! to gather results, its results tend to include low quality directories and guestbooks.

Link-building tools should not be all you use in your link-building campaign but they can be very helpful. These 3 link-building tools are indispensable because they can help you find out quickly and easily what your competition is doing and lead your link-building campaign in the right direction.

Labels: link_building

In the online world, the more specific your keyword phrases are the more conversions you will get. As such, long tail keyword phrases are very important in link-building campaigns. Links with long tail keyword phrases as anchor text have proven to be very effective in both PPC and SEO, according to tests.

How to Find Long Tail Keyword Phrases

Analytics Tool – Use your analytics tool to find the long tail keyword phrases search engine users are typing in to find your site

Keyword Research Tools – There are both free and paid keyword research tools available out there. Simply enter a few generic terms in your keyword research tool to generate a list of both popular and long tail keywords. You can also find common misspellings of popular keywords when you use keyword research tools. Google Suggest can also be very helpful when you are searching for long tail keyword phrases.

Check Primary Keyword Phrase Rankings – Hop on a search engine, search for primary keyword phrases, and look at the content surrounding the keyword phrases. Gather some ideas for long tail keyword phrases based on the content you find.

Brainstorming – The basic and easiest way to come up with long tail keyword phrases for your link-building campaigns is through brainstorming. Put together a list of generic keywords and keyword phrases as well as a list of adverbs and adjectives.

Create or Find Appropriate Landing Pages for the Long Tail Keyword Phrases You Are Targeting

Use an internal search function to search for long tail keyword phrases in your content. If you can find a relevant page, use it as your landing page. However, if you cannot find any relevant content, create new content based on the long tail keyword phrase you want to target but only if you actually offer the service/product/information mentioned in the keyword. Avoid creating overly specific pages for each niche term and especially avoid creating irrelevant landing pages because it causes people to lose trust in your website.

Build Links with Long Tail Keyword Phrases as Anchor Text

Use an analytics tool to find the best long tail keyword phrases based on referrals and then measure which long tail keyword phrases are bringing in the most traffic. One perk of optimizing your site for long tail keyword phrases is the fact that it is quick to measure results. With generic, competitive keyword phrases it can take months to see results. If you create links with highly specific long tail keyword phrases in your niche as anchor text, you may even get results as quickly as overnight.

Although optimizing links for long tail keyword phrases if often an afterthought for webmasters, it can be a highly effective way to drive more targeted traffic to your website, increase conversions, and improve your search engine ranking. Capitalize on the long tail keyword phrase phenomenon by building links with long tail keyword phrases as anchor text and including landing pages on your website that are optimized for those long tail keyword phrases. Measure the results of your efforts with an analytics tool and in time you are sure to find a formula that works for you.

Labels: seo_guide

As anyone in SEO will tell you, the two essential things you need in order to achieve high search engine rankings are backlinks and great content. Search engines measure the authority of your website by counting its backlinks. Great content is the cornerstone of a successful website because it ensures that visitors from search engines get the information they are looking for.

Providing original content that is interesting and informative will help your website go a long way online but you must be aware of the duplicate content penalty. Duplicate content can even cause your website to drop out of the search engine results completely. Although some SEO gurus will tell you that you don’t need to worry about duplicate content as long as you have plenty of inbound links to your site, you need quite a hefty amount of links in order for that to be true. To stay on the safe side, avoid duplicate content at all costs. Here are some accidental ways you may be creating duplicate content on your website.

Content that Occurs on Every Page or Multiple Pages of Your Site

Sometimes website owners end up with duplicate content not because they stole someone else’s content or because someone stole theirs but simply because many of the same words end up on multiple pages of their websites. Text that may be found on several or all pages of your website includes:

- Your name and address
- Contact form (if you have it on every page)
- Sidebars
- Navigation
- Footer
- Disclosure/disclaimer
- Words in your web template

If you only have about a couple hundred words of unique content on each page, all of this accidental duplicate text can add up and possibly cause you some search engine trouble. To avoid a potential duplicate content penalty, simply make sure that there is a lot more original content than template text.

Blog Issues

Are there little snippets of your blog posts on the home page of your blog/website? The same can happen if you submit your blog posts to several different categories. To avoid this problem you just have to submit your blog to one category. Another issue that can constitute duplicate content is blog archives. Simply add a no-index to the duplicate pages to avoid problems. The canonical tag isn't going to help in this case since in both the categories and archives pages more than one article is usually displayed so asking the search engines to do not count that page is definitely the best approach.

One solution to the duplicate content penalty is providing more original, unique content on each page than naturally-occurring duplicate content. If you make a rough count of recurring text that is on each page, make sure to add enough unique content to exceed that count by a comfortable margin to be on the safe side.

Another thing you can do is make necessary duplicate content readable only to humans and not search engines. If there is a lot of it, you can put it in a form that search engines cannot read such as a flash file or image file. However, make sure the file size is as small as possible in order to keep the page load time down.

Labels: on_site_seo

If your business has had an online presence for a while now, you’ve probably built up a substantial list of opt-in email addresses from newsletter sign-ups, customer data, etc. There are actually ways you can use these email addresses in order to increase your inbound links.

Sending out viral emails is essential if you want to attract links and drive traffic to your website. The steps involved in creating a viral email include explicitly asking your prospects to complete a particular action, stating the benefits of completing whatever action you are asking the prospect to complete, and giving an incentive. Last but not least, an important aspect of making your emails viral is to add a simple request such as, “forward this email to your friends and family to let them know about this opportunity.”

The Essential Elements of Viral Emails

One of the best ways to build inbound links via viral emails is directly asking your clients/prospects for links on their websites. Not everyone has websites but nowadays several people do and you must use this to your advantage no matter what you action you are asking your clients/prospects to complete. Offer them something in exchange for the links such as a discount on a product or subscription. Don’t ask for anything that won’t bring you returns. Links are very important to your online presence and search engine rankings so asking for them is an invaluable way to improve your site’s standing and traffic. Including a small line in your emails asking for a link is smart marketing. A small incentive is all people need to be convinced to link to you. The incentive should be good enough to appeal to both customers and prospects.

The problem with many promotional emails is the fact that they don’t include good enough incentives. If a company sends you an email asking you to become a fan of their Facebook group, they better give you a good reason to do it. You probably won’t be enticed to hop online and join them on Facebook just because they told you it would help you connect with their other fans online. If the company was offering you a discount on one of their products or services, you would be far more likely to get online and join them on Facebook. The most important question that any promotional email must answer for the reader is, “What’s in it for me?” Readers want to be sure that they are getting something in return for their time or money.

Overview

The key to success in building links through viral emails is telling your customers what is in it for them, asking for a link, giving them something special in return for doing what you ask, , and kindly telling them to pass your email along to their friends and family. Use your email list or that of a partner in order to send out these viral emails. Keep the emails concise and make sure the call to action is clear. Leave the incentive dangling at the end in order to entice and attract your prospects.

Labels: link_building

Meta tags and keywords are very important aspects of SEO. Unfortunately, few people do little more than some keyword research and keyword stuffing in order to optimize their sites and improve organic search engine ranking. Keyword research through the use of keyword tools is effective but only to an extent. In order to find the exact phrases to target both in your content and meta tags, it’s a good idea to use paid search.

How to Find the Most Effective Keywords via Paid Search

Many people out there optimize pages on their websites for certain keywords without taking into consideration whether the keywords convert. In order to ensure that the keywords you are targeting are worthwhile, you should use paid search to your advantage. Risk-taking is part of being successful on the web but in this case, there is no need to take risks. Paid search will give you the information you need in order to target keywords that are worth your investment of time and money in SEO.

Use paid search to target different keyword variations. By doing so you will be able to figure out exactly which keywords you should target. There could be very small differences in keywords that will dramatically affect results. For example, the plural version of a keyword may do far better than the singular version. Sometimes keyword phrases perform far better than the target keyword alone. Use a paid search program such as Google Adwords and start several campaigns for a variety of search terms to figure out which ones perform the best.

Using Paid Search to Improve Your Meta Tags

Keywords aren’t all you can improve through research with paid search. Meta tags are another highly important component of search that many webmasters overlook completely. Sure, the bolded keywords in the search results do increase click through but you also need to pay attention to the words surrounding them (i.e. the description meta tags) for optimal results.

Tracking click through via natural search is incredibly difficult. This makes it nearly impossible to determine which description meta tags are most effective. Fortunately, you can track clicks via paid search quite easily. In order to create effective description meta tags, you should test a variety of different ideas and keywords in your paid search ads and measure their click through.

An example of this is if you offer free shipping in one ad and mention product reviews in the other. You can measure the results of each ad in order to determine which one is most effective and attracts the most clicks. Use the data you uncover in order to create highly effective meta tag descriptions. Include the keywords and ideas that have the most success in paid search in your meta tags for optimal results.

Contrary to popular belief, paid search is a lot more than just a method of advertising. It can be a highly effective research tool in SEO if used correctly. By researching which keyword phrases and ideas are most effective through paid search, your efforts to achieve organic search engine ranking will reach their fullest potential.

Labels: on_site_seo, seo_guide

Many online business owners and webmasters are interested in receiving quick assessments about how they can improve their websites for SEO. There’s no way to fix a website and get a top ranking in Google in under an hour but there are several small things you can do to put your website on the path to SEO success. For smaller sites, this quick SEO assessment should only take around 20 minutes to implement.

There are several automated systems and plug-ins available out there for evaluating your website’s SEO. Nonetheless, there is simply no replacement for human assessment because of the detailed insight and depth it provides. Follow this simple checklist in order to determine what your website lacks in terms of SEO. It will be an eye-opener and allow you to quickly assess your website even before you consult an SEO professional.

1. Write the URL of your homepage with and without www, if both versions are available choose one and redirect the other using your htaccess file. This is the most common canonical mistake, and can also affect the link building strategy. Remember to change all the links to the home page to the version you choose. 301 Redirect Guide

2. Take a look at your home page title tags. Make sure that the first words are your targeted keywords. If your keywords aren't too long you can include your brand/url at the end of your title tag. Always verify that every page has a unique title tag with relevant keywords.

3. Review your website navigation. Inner linking structure is an important factor in your SEO optimization and java drop down menus, for example, are unreadable to the search engine spiders. Always try to use text for your navigation and take advantage of the CSS files for the decoration, avoid images for your navigation when possible and if you do have to use images make sure the alt tag of that image is related to the page you are linking.

4. Take a look at the URLs. Both for users and search engines your URL should include keywords and not a code. Dynamic URLs (site.com/page.php?category=2&product=54) should be converted to Static URLs (site.com/cars/honda/). URL Rewrite Guide.

5. Every page in your site should target different keywords, don't create 3 different pages targeting, for example, NY Limousine, NY City Limousine and Limousine in New York City NY, when you can easily target all 3 keywords in one page. Make sure the targeted keywords for every page are used properly in your URLs, navigation, in Title and Description tags, h1/h2/h3 tags, content and image ALT tags.

6. Take a look at your content. Is there enough text? If your content is hidden in frames, flash animations or images the search engine spiders won't be able to read it. A common and easy way to check this is opening the "source code" in your web browser, all the content should be visible in your HTML. Another simple way is to use the free spider simulator available for free online.

7. Check your meta description tags and make sure that it is unique for every page in your site, make sure you've included the most important keywords, proper length, and relevance. Your meta description should invite your potential customers to click on your search result. A well written Title and description Tag can highly increase the click through rate even if you aren't in the top 3 positions.

8. Analyze the robots.txt file. There are many available tools to make sure you aren't blocking the search engines spiders involuntarily from crawling relevant content. In the robots.txt file you can also include a link to the sitemaps of your website. Free robots.txt Test.

9. There are many free tools to generate XML and HTML sitemaps. Take advantage of them! Submit your XML sitemap to your webmaster account in Google, Yahoo and Bing. Include a link to the HTML sitemap in your index and 404 error pages for your users. HTML sitemaps shouldn't have more than 100 links per page. Remember to keep them updated. XML sitemaps generator and Wordpress HTML Sitemap Generator.

10. Check for broken links. It can happen to anybody to misspell a link. In big sites it is very common to have links to pages that expired or don't exist anymore. Broken Links Checker.

11. In big sites linking structure can be a problem. You shouldn't have more than 100 links per page, try to structure and divide the links by category. If you have more than 100 pages the relevance should flow in the site navigation. You can try to link the top sellers/highest "money makers" products in all the pages to give them more relevance but don't overdo it.

12. Ask your wife/husband, neighbor and friends to read your content. Many times people over optimize their content with too many keywords making it unnatural. Remember to keep your customer/visitors in mind before the search engines. Natural, relevant, well written content is a linkable content!

Follow these easy steps in order to give your website a basic assessment and identify any issues that your site may have with SEO. Remember that doing this analysis is just a quick way of getting started with SEO and determining whether or not your site needs to be altered. It cannot replace a thorough SEO analysis by a professional. However, you can use this checklist to spot and fix any major issues prior to hiring professional SEO services.

Labels: seo_guide, seo_tips

In the quest to improve their search engine ranking, many bloggers focus far too much on writing for the search engines. As a blogger, you must write with your readers in mind first and foremost. Your aim should be to entice and inspire your readers so you can encourage them to spread the word about your blog and become regular readers. By obsessing too much over SEO tactics, bloggers can lose sight of the bigger picture, eventually costing them their readership. That being said, SEO still plays a role in blogging but it should not be considered the be-all end-all of blogging.

Blogging is SOCIAL

Some of the most successful bloggers out there have paid absolutely no attention to SEO. That is because their success does not depend upon inane SEO tactics but on how readers respond to their material. The key to success in blogging is to write material that helps, provokes, or inspires readers and to get plenty of eyeballs on your content. When people like your writing, they will reference it in their blogs, vote for it on social media websites, twitter it, or spread your links through other means. In turn, this social media exposure will bring you the link juice you need to achieve higher rankings.

SEO Blogging Tips

SEO will mostly take care of itself if you focus your energies on providing value to your readers. Nonetheless, there are a few SEO basics you can follow in order to ensure that your blog is SEO-friendly. You need to take SEO into consideration to some extent since your blog will never get popular if your content cannot be found. Finding the happy medium between writing for the search engines and human readers is essential. You don’t want your writing to come across as being written for search engines but it should be SEO-friendly.

There really is no need to worry about the complexities of SEO if you are a blogger since search engines already love blogs. Incorporate a few target keywords in your blog posts and headlines but don’t go keyword crazy. Never forget that you are ultimately writing for people, not search engines. Some other things you can do to make your blog more SEO-friendly are to use ALT tags on your images, break up your post with header tags, and use smart permalinks.

Some bloggers may refrain from posting because they are worried that their blog posts are not perfectly optimized. There truly is no reason to fret about such matters as the key to success in blogging is to make your posts interesting and enticing to readers. Once you do that, the SEO benefits will come naturally.

Search engine spiders love content that is constantly updated so bloggers should try to post as frequently as possible. Otherwise, there isn’t too much you need to worry about when it comes to SEO in blogging. No matter how great your SEO strategies are your blog will never be successful if people don’t like it. Put people before search engines when you write your blog posts because it will pay off. When you provide maximum value to your readers, the SEO benefits will eventually come through social media exposure.

Labels: blogging, seo_tips

Sphinn is a social media website designed for the search marketing community. The website was launched covertly in 2007 and has risen to become one of the most popular networking sites for search marketers. Sphinn allows its members to submit and vote on articles about SEO, internet marketing, and social media. There are several benefits to registering at Sphinn and participating if you are an SEO professional. Here are 7 of them.

1. Content only needs 10-20 votes to make it to the front page. This means that even newbies can get noticed and have their content read by several important people in the search marketing business. There is no other networking site out there that provides such exposure.

2. You can get great referral traffic from Sphinn. People who click on your article titles will be led to your website, which will allow you to increase traffic and leads while making a name for yourself in the search marketing industry.

3. Several influential members of the search marketing community such as Matt Cutts, Gary Price, and Aaron Wall are members of Sphinn and a number of high authority sites in search marketing have discussed content that was submitted on Sphinn. This means that if you submit your content to Sphinn it may potentially be exposed to a large audience and receive a lot of link love.

4. Several social media sites are anti-SEO and bury content that they suspect is linkbait or that they think is too self-promotional. As long as your content is valuable to audiences, Sphinn won’t bury it. Search marketers despise social media sites that bury their content for sometimes unfair reasons so SEO-friendly Sphinn has become a refreshing alternative.

5. There is a lot of great content to be enjoyed on Sphinn. When you actively participate in the Sphinn community, you can get access to excellent information, news, and analysis in the search marketing industry while connecting with your peers.

6. Sphinn is for us, by us. Most search marketers have been hoping for an alternative to Digg and Sphinn is an excellent one because it is aimed at the search marketing industry. The site has already received a lot of attention and exposure. Sphinn’s authority will only increase with time.

7. Submitting articles on Sphinn is a great way to build your brand. If you provide excellent content, people in the search industry will remember your name and you will come to establish authority in the niche.

Great content about SEO used to go unnoticed but thanks to Sphinn, even the small guys can be seen and heard. Getting a story popular on Sphinn can be very valuable because of the high-profile members there who can provide you with link love. Just take a look at the member list on the site and you will notice many names of the so-called “linkerati” of search marketing. If you focus on providing valuable content and become an active member of the Sphinn community, you’re sure to reap the benefits of social media marketing and build a strong reputation in the search industry.

Labels: social_media

Most of us are regularly bombarded with invitations to sign up for social media sites but if we actually used each site to its fullest potential, we would have no time for anything else, not even sleep. Social media sites are time-consuming and if you want to become a popular user, you have to be very active on the site and make valuable contributions.

Most of us simply don’t have the time or the desire to dive headfirst into the depths of social media but that doesn’t mean we should ignore every invitation we get. Signing up for important social media sites in your niche and creating profiles for them could actually benefit and protect your business in many ways.

Use Social Media Profiles to Attract Traffic to Your Main Website

Sign up for sites you think are important in your niche and contribute to each of them until you decide on one or two that are worth contributing to significantly. For the others, simple add detailed profiles with links to your main website. These profiles won't only serve as a way to funnel visitors to your main website but will also protect your brand from malicious webmasters. Most social media profiles contain the no-follow attribute and they'll help increase direct traffic more than search engine rankings.

For the sites you actually plan on contributing to significantly, your aim should be to increase your popularity. The way to get noticed on social media sites is to be very active and frequently make popular contributions. The contributions you make will vary from site to site and may be videos, articles, news submissions, etc. On some of these social media sites, your submissions may make it to the front page when you become popular and include a link to your profile. Your first goal will be to get people to visit your profile. Then you have to try and get them to click on the links to your main website.

Make sure you only give readers and viewers on the social media site a taste of what they will get from your main website. Of course each sample has to be useful, relevant, and informative so you can build your authority and popularity on the site and in your niche.

Tips for Building an Effective Social Media Profile

Make sure your profile page contains as much information about your business as possible and include plenty of links to your main website. Try to make the content of your profile enticing enough to encourage visitors to click through to your main website.

Some social media sites allow more customization of profiles than others so when it’s allowed, make the most of it. Upload videos, an avatar, images, etc. when possible. No matter how much or how little time you spend on a social media site, make sure your profile is killer and ready for any traffic it may receive.

The Brand-Building Benefits of Social Media Profiles

Another great benefit of building profiles on social media sites is that they often get displayed prominently in search engine results. Your social media profiles will serve as an important component of your brand-building efforts and reputation management since anytime someone searches for your brand name, those profiles are likely to come up in the top ten search results.

If you thought that signing up for social sites was a big waste of time, think again. You can make social media work for you, even if you don’t plan on spending much time on the majority of the sites you sign up for. Make the effort to create strong social profiles featuring information and links back to your main website. The time you spend doing it is sure to have a great payoff in the form of increased traffic to your website and stronger brand image online.

Labels: social_media