Few things here.  Keep in mind these factors are just my opinions based on my experience as a web designer. 

To start off, alot of people hear the website lingo of "optimization".  "You have to optimize your site for the keywords you want to rank on Google for..."  Just because your website is optimized does not by any means mean that you will rank high on Google.  You could have the most optimized website on the web and rank pretty low on the search engines.  Ranking high on search engines requires a number of things. 

First and foremost, in my opinion, is inbound links to your site.  Google counts up the number of links coming to your site and says, "Oh since this site has 10,000 links to it, it must be a pretty important site, we will put them up there at #1 or #2."  How do you get inbound links? There are numerous methods, but in my opinion the best way to get true inbound links is by providing quality information that people want to read.  It doesn't matter whether it's helpful information, gossip, news, etc.  If people find it helpful or interesting, they might post a link on their site linking to yours.  In my opinion, a blog is a great way to do this.  But, the blog has to be incorporated into your site.  It can't be a website of it's own because the inbound links would go to some other domain and Google wouldn't see them as one in the same.  Now, there are ways to get links to your sites that Google frowns upon such as what Google calls "link farms".  Link farms are websites that charge you to put a link on their website or other websites.  If Google catches you buying links, your website could be blacklisted and not appear in the search engines.

One side note about links is the quality of links that you get linking to your site.  Google actually rates your website believe it or not.  Your website has a rating of 3/10.  So if a higher rated website lets say a 9/10, link to your website, that link is worth more to Google than a link that's lets say 4/10.  No one knows the exact math, but 1 link with a rating of 9 or 10 may be worth 50 links of 3 or 4 quality.  Know what I mean?

Second, is traffic, which can come from any source... social networking sites, adwords, email marketing, etc.  Why traffic though? Because the more traffic you get, the more people that get to see your site, the more chances you have at getting people to link to your site and show others.  And the obvious reason, the more traffic, the more money you make.  But making money really doesn't contribute to SEO in any way heh.  So all in all, traffic helps everything, SEO & sales.  Because if Google sees a site that's getting 100,000 hits a month and there is a site that only has 1,000 hits ranked above it, Google will say, "Oh, well obviously this site is more important because it has 99,000 more visitors per month so we will bump them ahead of the other site." 

Third, is optimization.  When you do get ranked after getting enough links and traffic, you want to be ranked for the right keywords.  That's where optimization comes in.  You optimize your site so that you are ranking for the right keywords that you want to rank for.  This is a catch 22 though, the more people that search for a keyword on Google, the more competitive it is to climb the rankings.  So you have to really decide what keywords you really want to fight for.

One exception to these SEO factors is domain names.  If you go out to Google and type in "Cincinnati Golf Apparel" and there is a website called exactly that, "cincinnatigolfapparel.com" then typically you will see that site ranked higher than anything else regardless of links, traffic, and optimization.  That's not always the case, but you will see it majority of the time.

Hope this helps!

Let's just start out by saying even I underestimated the power of links.

Do yourself a favor, what keyword do you want to be #1 on? Go out to Google or Yahoo and type in your keyword to find out where you are in comparison to everyone else.  Let's say you come back as #10 for "New York Hot Dogs" and you want to be #1.  Now, look at the #1 person on Google and copy that sites web address.  Now go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oG7zeeyStMVEoBHfnbl8kF?p=&y=Explore+URL&fr=sfp and type in "link:" + their site address.  So for instance it would look like "link:http://www.yourdomainhere.com" and hit enter. (make sure http is included)  Look at the number of results in the left hand column.  Now, hit back, and type in the URL of your web address.  More times than not, the person that is #1 will have more links coming into their site.  The only exception I have found is when the actual domain name is the keyword.  For instance if there was a website named www.newyorkhotdogs.com it will probably rank pretty high regardless of the amount of links.

Now, another thing to note is that if you have 5,000 incoming links to your site and the person that's ranked 1st on Google only has 4,000, there may be a few reasons for this.  First, perhaps your content is not optimized for the keyword you are trying to rank on.  Second, maybe the person that is 1st is linked by higher quality sites.  For instance if the New York Hot Dog #1 website has a link coming from The Wall Street Journal and you have a link coming from Joe Blow newspaper, Google will rank the Wall Street Journal linked site higher because it's a higher quality site.  You can tell what Google thinks of a site by looking at the "PageRank" google assigns to each page.  If you download the Google toolbar you can easily see this.  Google ranks a site from 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, 1 the lowest.  So for instance a site like the Wall Street Journal is probably ranked above a 5 and the Joe Blow newspaper would be ranked a 1 or 2.  No one knows the exact math behind it, but what I am saying is that having 4,000 links that are ranked a 6 is a lot better than having 5,000 links ranked a 2.  Get my drift?

More to come soon.  Next I'll cover linking strategies.

We are starting to see a lot of business owners really hesitate to get into social marketing.  Well, I want to assure you that the risks of NOT getting into social marketing far outweigh the risks of getting into social marketing.  I listed a few reasons below of why your business should definitely get into social marketing.

First and foremost, since there is already a huge demand for social sites, of course search engine's will want a piece of all that information.  It's only a matter of time until Google and other major search engines start indexing social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Second, it's all about visibility.  The more people you get in front of, the more people will naturally find your site and your company.  It's the exact same thing as networking in person, just over the internet.  Giving a person a link or having them find a link to your website is the exact same thing as handing out a business card in my opinion.  It's free, it's convienant, and it's easy.  What are you waiting for?

Lastly, and this ties into visibility, but think about how people are finding companies these days.  First, in my opinion is word of mouth, I value anyone's personal referral for a business far more than finding anything on the internet.  I can't tell you how many times someone has said in an email something along the lines of, "Yeah, they are good people.  Here, check out their facebook page and give them a call".   Anything after the referral process in my mind is simply a Google search.  I don't look in the yellow pages, I don't call the operator, I go to Google and type in "Plumbers, Cincinnati OH 45205".  I first use the Google Local search to find the closest plumbers.  Are you on Google Local? I hope so!  Second, I look at their websites, does it look like a website that was made in 1980?  If so, I move on to the next one.  In my opinion, if a owner can't pay for a decent website, their company isn't a solid company and I don't want to do business with them.  You just have to think like a client or customer.  How are they finding you? That's my typical process for finding companies.  I would assume other people's would be similar to some extent, but everyone is different.

As I mentioned before, the risks of NOT getting involved in social marketing are far higher than getting involved.  Just think about it, if you aren't out there, your competitors probably are.  How many clients or customers are you going to give your competitors?

Why Twitter is Becoming Increasingly Important to Marketers

1. Twitter Lists
Twitter Lists are changing the game. They will appear on sites and blogs, which are more than likely going to be related to the niche you are in anyway if you have the right audience on Twitter.

2. The Openness of Twitter
The openness of Twitter, social media and the web in general, pretty much means that your messages on Twitter won't be limited to your Twitter audience. Facebook and other social networks will bring tweets in. People will share them, screenshot them, link to them on blogs, etc. Twitter is a means of getting your message out to more people, but it's not necessarily only the people on Twitter that will see those messages.

3. Building Valuable Relationships
Laura Fitton, the author of Twitter for Dummies, chalks up success on Twitter to four basic concepts: listen, learn, care, and serve. Basically, if you listen to the community, you will learn, and if you show that you care, you are more likely to get more out of your efforts. Serving means providing something of use to the community. If you what you're not doing that, you may be setting yourself up to fail.

4. Traffic That Cares
Twitter can bring you not only random traffic, but traffic from people who are actually passionate about the niche that you are a part of. Retweets are huge in this regard. Guy Kawasaki calls retweeting the sincerest form of flattery. He has a point. He notes that people are willing to risk their reputations by retweeting your content.

5. Staying Current
Being found in Twitter searches (not to mention real time search in general, which is starting to become a main area of focus for all of the big search engines, not to mention all of the standalone real-time search sites) provides a lot of opportunity for exposure. Check out tips for getting found in real-time searches.

6. Connecting with Local Customers
There are a variety of ways you can connect with local consumers and customers using Twitter and Twitter-related tools. There are tools which let you find Twitterers in your area, for example. Another thing to keep an eye on is Google's new Social Search. It's currently just a lab experiment, but could become more. It certainly has potential.

A recent Search Engine Land article made some good points about the potential of local marketing with this tool, which delivers Google search results based on the communities you are a part of. It draws from Google profiles, which include the networks that people are connected to (based on what any person includes in that profile).

7. Going International and Multi-lingual
Twitter is expanding into more languages. If you thought Twitter was important to marketing already, consider that for most of its existence, it has only been available in a couple of languages. Now it's in Spanish, and many more languages will follow. That's not only going to be huge for international and multi-lingual marketing efforts, it's going to be huge for Twitter's growth, and the more Twitter grows, the more potential customers are out there.

8. It's Still Young
Consider that Twitter is just getting started in the grand scheme of things. It's still young. There are no doubt going to be a lot more features added in the future. And don't forget about the thousands of Twitter apps that are already out there that can make Twitter useful in different ways to different people and businesses. Take some time and explore them. Fitton's site OneForty.com, which is like Yelp for Twitter apps, is pretty good for that. It has reviews, and people tell why certain helps have helped their businesses.

Resources from: http://www.webpronews.com

Microsoft has made deals with both Facebook and Twitter, which will see Bing feature updates from both networks in real-time search efforts. This means that social media just became an even bigger part of search engine marketing, particularly with Google also on board with Twitter and rumored to be talking to Facebook.

Twitter Search only shows you results displayed chronologically, which has really always seemed to be the essence of real-time search to me anyway. But Bing has a "Best Match" option, which attempts to give certain tweets more weight than others.

Bing weighs tweets by follower counts. "If someone has a lot of followers, his/her Tweet may get ranked higher," says Bing. "If a tweet is exactly the same as other Tweets, it will get ranked lower."

This is of course the earliest stage for any kind of algorithm Bing may have in place for its Twitter search feature. The feature is still in beta after all. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft makes more details available for how it ranks tweets moving forward. This could be a whole new nut to crack for SEOs. Consider that Bing results will be taking over for Yahoo if the Microsoft-Yahoo deal goes through, plus there is still Google's Twitter results to worry about.

Yet another reason to join in the social networking game.

Here are 5 tips to help you get found in real-time searches.

1. Let's Get Competitive

If you run a site that thrives on user generated content (or you're thinking of adding this feature to your site but aren't sure where to start), then this is one technique to increase interaction from users. In forums, competitive behavior occurs naturally as users try to achieve various levels of status within the community. Other sites can mimic this behavior (and the consequential engagement it brings) but they may need a structure to help it along. Here are a few ideas:

- if you have a product or place that you want reviews for, feature a 'Review of the week' (don't forget to email them to let them know they're featured!). It's up to you how far you want to take this- why not take your top 5 reviewers out for dinner once a month?

- take a leaf out of Trusted Places' book and create badges for Local Experts

- follow SEOmoz's example and create a leader board that is powered off thumbs

Any of these incentives could be turbo-charged by adding a followed link back to the user's site.

2. Feature your users

Allowing guest posts, or even 'guest content', on your site is a great way to let your users know how much you value them. If a site I spent time on came to me and asked me to write a feature for them because they valued my input up to now, I'd be bowled over (yeah, I know, it doesn't take much).

If you'd rather not put the time into contacting individual users, try just putting a button on your site that invites guest posts or pitches. Savvy bloggers will be in touch before too long and you'll give off great vibes implying how much you value your users.

3. Donate to charity

Promising you’ll donate to a charity if someone links to your site feels a bit mafia-esque to me. Seeing as donations are a slightly gray area anywhere, I’d advise going after other kinds of beneficial user behaviour. For example, a client of ours donates about $5 to charity every time someone reviews his product. You could also use this method to acquire usability feedback, UGC and email newsletter sign ups.

How to do it

1. Have a look at your site and decide where it is this tactic could be useful. Ideally, users will be very close to interacting in these ways already- the charity angle just serves to push them into action.

2. Depending on what you're after, present the donation option when the user is in the right place to action it. For example, it would be much more effective to ask for a review of a product once someone has actually bought one! Similarly, why not ask for usability feedback when the user leaves the site, sweetening the deal with a promise to donate if they acquiesce.

3. You should definitely have a dedicated page that describes what you're doing, why you're doing it and how much you've raised. Include a link to this in any relevant call-to-action.

4. If possible, have a small list of charities that you donate to and let users choose which one they’d like the money to go to.

5. Once you've had the donations up and running successfully for a few weeks, let the charity know what you’re doing and suggest they might like to link to you to verify the process for your users. Win win.

6. Make the process as shareable as possible: ask if the user would like their friends to know about how they can make a free donation to charity.

A word of warning: even though this isn't an opportunistic scam and allows everyone- you, the charity and your users- to benefit, some people will have a problem with it. Make sure to be careful and respectful at all times.

4. Product Giveaway

If you have an ecommerce site, do you have any small, cheapish products that you could send to bloggers to get them to review? If you do, then this is a great way to build relationships with bloggers in your niche and encourage them to talk (hopefully positively) about your company. I wrote a whole thing on how to go about doing this, but then Rob pointed out he'd blogged about it a couple of weeks ago- so have a read of his post about Link Building for Small eCommerce Sites

5. Competitions and Prize Draws

Competitions are a really adaptable way of incentivizing certain types of user behavior. Here are just a few examples that we've seen recently:

- To get email sign ups - Fat Face- Win A Camper Van (very viral- has a 'refer a friend' draw as well)
- To sign up to a newsletter- Silksleep.com - win a silk blanket
- To get reviews - Pitchup.com- review a campsite and win a tent
- To generate buzz- the Hoxton Hotel competition- first set-number of entries win a room for a £1 and, of course moonfruit- enter anyone that mentions you into a prize draw (This doesn't necessarily have to happen on Twitter, but the real-time nature of it really helps to add momentum)
- To receive blog engagement- New Scientist - win a piece of moon rock

If you have any other examples of using 'positive motivational influences' to encourage certain kinds of user behavior, I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

Entry from: Lucy Langdon on October 5th on http://www.seomoz.org

Press releases are a form of online marketing that we don't discuss very often. They don't have the new and exciting appeal of social media or even search engine marketing, but they've been around a lot longer and are still working. In fact, they can play right into those other forms.

"Search engine rankings are arguably the most important small business marketing tool available today because it drives Web traffic -- and potential prospects -- to a small business' Web site," a PRWeb spokesperson tells WebProNews. "However, because improving search rankings is desirable, achieving results can be both challenging and highly competitive."

PRWeb shared a case study with us, involving a firm that typically sees a boost in search engine rankings and a 50% spike in web traffic after they issue a release. In fact, for one release in particular, the firm saw a spike of 400% on two different Web sites, and the firm doesn't believe they were from the same users. They also incorporate social media tools like Twitter to extend the "shelf life" of press releases, and say that drives additional traffic.

"If you want a release to rank highly in search engines you have to use key words and link those to your Web site," says Peter Figueredo, CEO of NETexponent, the subject of the case study.  "In addition, you need to put them in the release a few of times, for example in the headline, the sub-headline and again in the body. This is different from a traditional news release with a catchy headline where you may not have your key words included." 

"When we included a link to our press releases on Twitter and other social media networks, we saw these both expanded the scope of distribution and the extended the longevity of the announcement," adds Figueredo.  "With other news releases we saw an initial spike in Web site traffic on the first two days and then it dropped off.  With these features we've seen increases in traffic up to five days after the news release was issued."

Some have suggested that Twitter could actually replace the press release. I wouldn't go that far, but it provides a complimentary service for announcing news quickly. The press release just has much broader potential. That hasn't stopped at least one company from offering a service that provides one line "Twitter-style" press releases.

When we think of press releases, we often think of distribution, which is a huge part of it definitely. But when using a newswire service like PRWeb, BusinessWire, PRNewswire, etc., don't forget about your own website as well. Earlier this year I discussed how some companies' own press centers are holding back some marketing opportunities for them.

Your site should have a section for press releases, and that should be up to date with the latest release when it goes out. You'd be surprised at how often these go without being updated even when a press release has been spotted elsewhere. It is also a good idea to link to any company blogs, Twitter accounts, or any other place where company announcements are made.

Another thing I notice is that many company press pages also do not have RSS feeds set up. Some offer different kinds of press alerts, but otherwise, they are relying on people to frequently check back to see what is happening. Google does this well. They announce a lot of their news via their wide range of blogs, and while their press release section doesn't get nearly as many updates, they offer a feed so that users know when it has been updated. They also provide links to other press-related resources where their latest info can be obtained.

The bottom line is that press releases inform interested parties of what is going on with your business. Despite their name, they're not just about the press anymore. The web has made them available to anyone. Social media is an extension of this, and opens up the opportunity for sharing. Search engine rankings of course bring releases right to searchers. Make your releases good.

 Entry from: http://www.webpronews.com

There is an endless number of social media sites out there.  So how do you decide which to use for your business?

I believe there are 4 fundamental reasons you are using social media sites in the first place.  1.) To draw more traffic to your website, and in return increase sales.  2.) To expand your network of professionals.  3.) To make people aware of your business and what you do.  4.) Keep up with the latest industry trends from other business professionals you meet and network with.

Here are 3 social sites that I believe every business and consultant should utilize to increase their sales and network with professionals in their industry.

1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. LinkedIn

It’s true that there may be a few better social sites such as YouTube that fit your specific business better.  But those 3 I feel any business can utilize to bring value to their firm.