Gaining Success With Social Media
Standing out on the Internet can be a troublesome process. When a person has a significant amount of competition, it is easy to give up. However, if a person utilizes a social media website, it is possible to garner benefits.
How to Gain Followers and Fans
1. Update a Profile Frequently
If a person wishes to gain as many followers as possible, it is crucial to remain active. A person should not create a social media account and then pay little attention to it. People may lose interest in the account. If this is not the case, potential customers may assume that a business is no longer active. A person should ensure that recent information is always available. It is also a smart idea to ensure that the information is helpful and informative.
2. Interact With Followers
Popular people on social media websites tend to interact with followers; they answer any questions that they may receive. They talk to people and update them on certain events and issues. Emulating these popular social media individuals is a plan to keep in mind. It is necessary for people to feel that they are important. They should have the impression that their comments and opinions are valid. If a person feels acknowledged, he or she may tell friends and family members. When a social media account owner takes these steps, they will receive more followers. They will gain more attention in the long run.
Utilizing Social Media
1. Link to Blog or Other Website
A business or individual may wish to link to a blog or other website. When a person chooses to do this, potential readers and customers may discover the website. The link to the website may be placed in a profile area of a social media account. If this is not possible, daily entries may provide a link to the website. It is vital to exercise caution; a person should not link to the website too frequently. Many people may assume that the business is unprofessional or desperate. Restraint should be practiced.
2. Announce Upcoming Products or Sales
It is not enough to link to a website. If a person wishes to gain further success, he or she should advertize upcoming activities. If a business is releasing a new product, the product should be discussed on the social media site. Some people will appreciate the gesture and reward the owner in the long run. A business may wish to reward followers by providing exclusive discounts and other incentives. When a person chooses to do this, the online presence of the business will improve. People will be aware of the business; they will wish to share information with people around their community.
If a person or business wishes to reach the same level of success as Charles Phillips, Jr., the information above should be kept in mind. A willingness to try new things is paramount, and giving up is not an option. The Internet has many possibilities. It is a terrific idea to utilize this medium.
Read MoreArticle Marketing After Google Farmer Update
Guest Post by Pat Tate
Google has tried to undo one of the most popular and effective marketing methods known to site owners – article marketing. In the past, when you wanted to market a new aspect of your site or just get new backlinks, you created or purchased articles and submitted the same articles to numerous article directories. These articles were picked up by other sites and republished to give you more exposure.
Overall, it was a great way to market your site. Unless you purchased articles, the process was free or at least extremely cheap. Since other marketing methods often mean paying for ad space or spending time trying to build relationships with other sites for the possibility of a backlink, free and simple is definitely the preferable method.
So why would Google want to take away this power from webmasters? While you may have been benefiting from it, so were the wrong types of sites. Spam or low quality sites take full advantage of any types of free or low cost marketing they can. Your site may be legitimate, but if these other sites are benefiting just as much, it is possible your site may get lost in the middle of all these others.
Since Google can’t control which sites use these directories, the best way to eliminate some of the low quality search results is to banish article directories to the bottom of the search results pile. Where as many directories had high page ranks before the Google Farmer update, most are lucky if they even rank at all now.
The result for site owners was a drop in traffic. Some saw an increase and others saw no difference at all. If everyone who used article marketing saw the same results after the update, then the solution would be obvious. Just use other marketing methods and your site will be fine. Since the update created three different results for sites, the answer isn’t so cut and dry.
The most common question from site owners is whether article marketing can still be used or not. With many sites earning most of their profits through article marketing, the idea of giving up this lucrative avenue is devastating. The good news is you don’t have to give up article marketing at all. You will need to change a few things about how and where you market, however.
Change Is Good
As we discussed earlier, article marketing was used by all sites, both good and bad. Another problem with the marketing tactic was the inability to control where your articles were republished. While the second part is still a small problem, there is a way to keep it from damaging your site’s reputation. The issues caused by bad sites have made Google change its search algorithm. This is for the good of searchers, not necessarily for sites.
Google looks for what people actually want, instead of search engines. While this isn’t a perfect solution, it does take out some of the nonsense you see on many article directories. Bad articles typically equal bad sites. A high quality site spends more time on their articles to ensure visitors want to head back to their website after reading. With all the articles lumped together, the bad ones bring down an article directory’s page rank. If no one can find the directory, no sees your article from a search engine and no one republishes it. As you can see, this presents a major problem.
The solution is finding the directories which have quickly recovered from Google’s little change. Sites like Ezine Articles are still going strong. You may not see quite as many results, but many of the higher quality articles are appearing on the first page of results for many searches. This proves that article directories are still holding their own. As long as they are ranking, article marketing is still possible.
This is where one of the first major changes comes into play. Instead of submitting to hundreds of directories, choose a handful of high quality directories. Submitting to those who no longer rank is not going to help your site. More likely, it will cause your own rank to drop. Low quality backlinks should always be avoided when possible.
The next change is crafting high quality articles. This means you need to work on grammar, content, keyword placement and general structure. Google is looking for well written content. While you want search engines to find you, bad content full of keywords will get you dropped instead of picked up. A few well placed keywords which fit into the context of the article work much better. Take the time to familiarize yourself with Google’s guidelines to ensure your content fits the bill.
The final change is creating unique articles for every directory. Instead of submitting the same article to every directory, rewrite your article for each place. Google will see each directory as having unique content. Since one of Google’s rules deals with duplicate content, the more unique content you create, the less duplication you will have.
While you can’t control who will republish your content, high quality content does counter the duplication rule to an extent. There are no exact percentages or numbers, but if you submit to four directories with the same article, duplication will always be times four. Four unique articles means one fourth the duplication rate as before. Basically, you go from 100% duplication to 25%. A much better percentage to aim for.
What About Bad Sites
If you can change your marketing methods, why can’t bad sites do the same? In the past, these sites wrote extremely poor content, which likely took less than three or four minutes to put together. Use an article spinner and you suddenly have a batch of useless content floating through hundreds of article directories.
A high quality article with relevant content to your site should take roughly thirty minutes to write. Rewrites take far less time, especially if you use the best spinner software available. Bad sites always look for shortcuts. This is simply more work than they are willing to put in. Instead, they’ll hope bombarding the system with more articles will somehow fool Google into ranking them.
If you have ever run across an article which linked to a site unrelated to the content, you know exactly what I’m talking about. For instance, if your site was about golf, ladies clubs may be a great topic, not how to care for your teeth.
While a few will still try, the higher quality sites are the ones who will benefit. Instead of competing against spam, you can actually compete against real competitors. The better your article marketing technique, the easier it will be to advance past your competitors’ altogether.
Make Google Work For You
Google tried to kill article marketing and failed. Instead, they made it easier for legitimate sites to benefit. Many article directories are clearing out junk and have created strict guidelines for new content. By only accepting the best, they are able to rank high. A higher rank means more visitors for you. Since the directory will have a good reputation with Google, having a backlink through them will help your site too.
Some directories are even offering ways to choose which places republish your content. Though people can still bypass the rules and copy and paste, it will deter some. Control is always a great thing. Often times, sites will simply offer a preview and a link to the original article. This prevents duplication while still providing a link to your content, which contains a link to your site.
Regardless of your opinion on Google’s Farmer update, you can take advantage of it. With the trash falling to the bottom of the pile, you have the chance to rise far above it. Many sites are already seeing the results of their new article marketing efforts. The results are surprising to most since their rank is higher than before. If you have numerous low quality backlinks and articles, it may take longer to recover, but it is still possible.
Google will never be able to kill article marketing. It can change how it’s done, but never do away with it. Article marketing is here to stay. The results are just based around how you do it. The learning curve isn’t steep. Your site will benefit, your content looks better and readers are far more likely to click links in great content than poor content. Google can and will work for your site if you are willing to make just a few changes to your marketing technique.
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As a senior Pat Tate started to explore Internet Marketing. She uses her blog as a journal to keep track of the people and programs that she has met along the way. Grandma’s Internet Marketing/blog. She is an avid golfer and invites women to join her to talk golf at Women’s Golf Center. She has always loved toys and as the proud Grandmother of five beautiful Grandchildren she gets to play with new ones at Grandma’s Toy Review.
Read MoreAdding Variety to Anchor Text for a Natural Backlink Profile
Guest Post by Andy Wallner
If you’ve ever encountered SEO, you know that the whole idea of search optimization is often a battle against search engines, not with them. The life of an SEO expert consists of constantly seeking ways to “trick” Google into thinking that people love your site, even if you’ve only had a few visitors (or have other, more financially related motives). Far too often, SEOers (that’s a word, right?) tend to find the quickest, dirtiest, and easiest ways to bring visibility to their sites, and forget that there’s actually a missing human element. Get big enough in a competitive vertical, and Google might pick your site to be analyzed by their engineers (I’ve seen giants toppled because of this).
It’s unlikely that you’ll ever actually trick a search engineer. But launching obvious link building campaigns can set off some red flags that bring negative attention to your efforts. So, what’s the best way to make sure that Google knows you’re not getting all natural links? Forgetting to add variety to your anchor text.
The State of Anchor Text
Anchor text is a puzzling thing to many new web marketers. Let’s say, for example, that you operate the site marketingdegree.net, and want to generate more traffic by targeting some keywords. What would you do? The phrase “marketing degree” seems to be pretty valuable, so we might target that alone. And that would make sense as many people would refer to the site like I just did above. With an exact match domain, the job is fairly simple and natural links are more likely to come in how I want them.
Now, let’s consider a different scenario. Let’s suppose I went a different route with a “brandable domain.” Google wanted to be more than a website (that’s why they didn’t pick searchengine.com). So, they chose a brand. Suppose I chose something like “Google.com” for my site in some alternate Internet universe. How likely would it be that everyone would link to me using the phrase “marketing degree?” Pretty unlikely unless I was already dominating the SERPs. People would link to me in all sorts of ways, from “click here” to “this site doesn’t agree with my opinion, however” as the anchor text. In fact, some companies have accidentally ranked for that anchor text – try searching Google for “click here” and you’ll find some pretty powerful players on page one (Adobe, Wikipedia, Apple, Mapquest and Yahoo!). When I got big enough, people would likely link to me primarily using “Google.”
Still, conversions matter. Adobe probably isn’t making any money by ranking number one in Google for “click here,” even though AdWords is telling me that I’m one of about 22,200 that searches for it every month and there is no advertising competition whatsoever for the term (jackpot right?). The chances of monetizing such a broad keyword phrase are slim (especially with all those heavy hitters dominating it in Google).
Adding That Variety
Anchor text for incoming links is vital to your success, but it’s not everything. You can think of links as having two different types of “juice” – the normal, delicious kind that passes reputation (called page rank by Google), and the just as delicious juice called “passing anchor text.” It’s far more complicated, but think of it like this:
- Any old link builds your site’s reputation with Google, and helps you rank slightly for all search terms relevant to your site’s content.
- Anchor text helps you rank for specific terms.
So why is it that so many beginning SEO enthusiasts set out on a link building campaign to build thousands of links using the same exact anchor text every time? Can you think of anything less natural? You can sit back and wait for the links to come naturally (like Google wants you to…), or you can add a little variety to your anchor text to avoid setting off any alarms.
First, consider the two juices of a link. As long as a backlink doesn’t come from the bad neighborhood of the Internet (spam land and porn, gambling, etc.), a link is pretty much a link. In other words, getting a link can never hurt you. Otherwise, every spammer in the world would be sending thousands of terrible links to their competitors’ sites to shut them down. This doesn’t mean you need to spend hours getting a link from a PR 0 site either though.
So feel free to mix up your anchor text – a lot. Think about all of the ways a person might reference your site and its content and write them down. How do you talk to people about your services? Furthermore, what value does your site offer?
Using the Long Tail for Anchor Text Ideas
Think of a nice long tail keyword phrase that you’d like to target, preferably one that sums up everything your site has to offer – luxury vacations in Egypt for senior citizens, for example. If you divide that long tail phrase into smaller phrases (luxury vacations, vacations in Egypt, senior citizen vacations, etc.), then come up with all of the variations for those phrases (vacation over 65, holiday in Egypt, Egyptian vacations, and so on), you have a nice list of natural anchor text for your link building campaign.
You’ve successfully made a connection to everything your site has to offer, without spamming the same anchor text over and over again. Your efforts look much more natural to everyone involved – the Google robots and humans alike. And don’t worry too much about not ranking for your targeted keyword phrase. Search engine results don’t work that way. After all, why would Google design a system that relies on unnatural activity to yield natural results?
You might even add a few odd anchor text links to make things squeaky clean, like “I love this site” or “good news for us all.” You’ll still get the link juice.
Finally, if anyone reading this has the guts, free time, and extra cash to try to get their site on the first page for “click here,” please let Trisha know so I can send you a batch of my almost world famous banana bread (only if you’re successful, please!). Unfortunately, I lack all three of my aforementioned elements to do so myself, but I have plenty of banana bread at the moment.
Final Note: I must make one thing clear for those that are about to leave an angry comment. We’re not discussing exact match domain names right now. If you have an exact match domain, adding a lot of variety to your exact match anchor text isn’t really all that necessary, except if you’re branching out to other keyword phrases. You spent enough money on the domain to impress Google already, and they’ll fully expect thousands of links to come to it using your website name as the anchor text.
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Andy Wallner is a freelance writer and web developer that specializes in providing information to students considering a marketing degree, or interested in online and offline marketing information. In his free time, Andy enjoys kayaking, playing trombone in a local jazz band, and learning CSS.
Read More30% Off Link Building Services
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Read MoreDo Directories Help Traffic?
When I first started this blog back on Blogger last summer, I somehow got the idea that listing my blog in as many directories as possible was the way to go. I don’t think I read this anywhere but I think my theory was that as many links I could get to my website as possible would be good. I eventually amassed a very large collection of directory listings in my sidebar. The 80×15 banner was my attribution of choice, which I displayed proudly like a badge of honor.
When I made the switch over to WordPress, I kept the directory listings for awhile but I realized that I didn’t really see any traffic from any of these directories. Most of my traffic comes from various social networks & direct visitors, as it did then as well. So I decided the space was too valuable to clutter up with 20+ little directory buttons. I also felt like the only people benefiting from these buttons and reciprocated links on my blog were the directories – not me.
It’s been a month now that I’ve been on this new home of mine and I’m starting to wonder if I did the right thing. I wonder if that “every little bit helps” method I had before was correct, and I got too full of myself in thinking that I didn’t need these links anymore.
So what have you found with directories? If anyone reading has any experience with listing themselves in the many blog directories there are around there on the net I’d love to hear it – please share!
Read MoreFeedBurner FAIL
Something wonky happened a few days ago and I didn’t notice… sorry feed readers!
Here’s the posts you may have missed…
- Effective Email Case Study – TubeMogul
- Link Glossary – Alt Text
- Comfortable Branding by Name (Video)
- Hard Sell Tactics DON’T WORK
- Developing Professional Business Cards with Sharp Company Logos
- Link Glossary – Backlinks
- Cribbed Content for April 11th
- Twittermethis v. Twattermethat (Podcast)
