~~~High Rankings Advisor – Issue No. 252~~~
Your Host: Jill Whalen [jill@highrankings.com]
________________________________________________________
~~~IN TODAY'S ADVISOR~~~
*Search Engine Marketing:
----> Heard It From the (Social Media) Grapevine
*High Rankings Happenings:
----> Half-day Website Marketing Workshops – A Few Seats Left!
----> $100 Off Our Basic SEO Consultation Package (only through March)
----> Full-day SEO Training Classes
*Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week:
----> Offering a Discount in Exchange for a Link?
*Advisor Wrap-up:
----> My Spinning Head
________________________________________________________
~~~Introductory Comments~~~
Hey everyone!
I've got a fairly substantial article about creating a social media marketing campaign that complements your SEO strategy, so let's get straight to it. – Jill
________________A Few Seats Left!________________________
Website Marketing Workshops April 2–3, 2009
______________________________________________________
4 Half-day Workshops to Choose From!
Already know the SEO basics?
In these half-day in-depth website marketing workshops you will learn:
* Keywords: How to research them and use them within your website
* Copywriting: For your target audience and the search engines
* Social media: How to get the word out and gain traffic and links for your website
* Web analytics: How to measure the success of your web marketing campaigns
Register for just one workshop, an entire day, or all 4!
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-pbJS1D3XdMadc%404078857-mfuyZW70UhfD2
______________________________________________________
~~~Search Engine Marketing Issues~~~
++Heard It From the (Social Media) Grapevine++
We've covered aspects of social media and Twitter the past, e.g., Jim Spencer's great article "Twitter Is Not for the Birds":
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-e2R7yTbLKvt1s%404078858-Ec1U38FHkAjTM
where he explained how to find people to follow as well as how Twitter can be a great business generation tool. Also my article "Are You Scared of Social Media?"
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-3UobhpFOENgbo%404078859-U1CqbVJw/bHgY
where I talked about how social media may be something you've been using for years, but with a new name.
Today I'll show you how to create your own social media monitoring and marketing strategy that complements your SEO campaign. While I'm going to talk mostly about Twitter, you can apply much of this info to other social media as well.
Social Media and Links
The first thing I want you to do is to take off your old-fashioned SEO linking cap that tells you, "It's all about the links." This is the wrong mentality.
While you can link to stuff in your tweets, those links won't directly gain you link popularity from the search engines. This is because links from Twitter and most other social media have the "nofollow" link attribute on them by default and therefore don't count toward Google's PageRank algorithm. We could debate whether there is still some link popularity benefit with other search engines or even perhaps some with Google, but I'll save that for another article because links are not what we're after today.
If Not for Links, Why Bother?
Your goal with social media is not to directly get links, but to be where people are already talking about your industry, participating in the conversation, and making them aware that you exist. It's almost the opposite of SEO. With SEO, you try to make your website as relevant as possible for the words people might be typing into Google and hope they eventually find you there. With social media, you have the opportunity to grab their attention before they ever get to Google! They are no longer nameless, faceless searchers, but people looking to other people for advice, recommendations, and help.
How Can You Help?
First, you need to find out where the conversation is happening and who's having it. The secret to this is the Twitter search engine:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-I6ILT6Kb1ow.Y%404078860-Sj2VRbcK9ufno
Twitter Search opens up a whole new world beyond your followers. It's akin to the telephone "party lines" you've seen in old movies, where everyone could hear what everyone else was talking about.
Start searching Twitter for anyone with your main keywords in their Tweets. If they're asking a question that you can answer, go ahead and @reply to them. You can follow them, but you may only want to if their Twitter stream seems to be of real interest to you. Many times people have one particular query or statement about something that relates to what you offer, but their overall Twitter stream may not. That's fine – there's nothing wrong with having a one-time communication with these folks.
Here's a real-life example. One of our recent SEO Training Class students owns a company that designs and manufactures some cool pet beds and pet travel crates. The day before our class I did a Twitter search for "pet travel" or "pet crates" or something along those lines. There was a lot of junk, but one person had mentioned that they needed to buy a dog travel crate. I didn't know this person, they didn't follow me, nor I them. Their Tweet just appeared in the Twitter search. So I @replied to them and simply said, "Have you looked into the cool pet crates from ___?" And provided a shortened tracking link to our class attendee's website.
Tracking Twitter Clicks
Because you have only 140 characters to work with in Twitter, numerous URL shortening services have cropped up. What they do is provide you with a shortened, redirected URL that has fewer characters than the original. On top of that, many of them provide you with clickthrough statistics. My service of choice is http://m1e.net/c?86763832-/3k2tkxWq3OFw%404078861-cbfU02ex7wwjw
The next day during the class I told the story to the students and we checked to see how many clicks the site had gotten. It was around 15. (As of today, a few weeks later, there were 20.) So, while I was only talking to one specific person whom I had never engaged with before, others – presumably my own followers or others searching for info on pet crates – saw my Tweet and clicked through.
Did the clicks make any sales? That I don't know, but if I were measuring it for our own site or for a client's site, I would have set up a campaign with Google Analytics that tracked and measured those clicks at a very granular level. That way I would know exactly what time those clicks came in and if they converted.
Now, remember, I only made one Twitter search at one particular moment in time. While 20 clicks is no big deal to many companies, imagine if I had searched for 20 or more relevant phrases and replied to other people who were discussing pet travel options. If just one person each had a Tweet that fit my 20 queries, and I replied to all 20 of them, we might have seen 400 clickthroughs!
Monitoring Your Space
The other cool thing about search.twitter.com is that you can create RSS feeds for as many Twitter searches as you want. You just add them to your favorite RSS reader and monitor them on a regular basis (at least daily if not hourly). I use iGoogle for the twitter feeds I monitor. Be sure to also create a search feed for your company name to see if and when people are talking about you so that you can be part of that conversation and monitor your reputation as necessary. There's even a service called "TweetBeep" that enables you to receive email alerts for specific Twitter searches:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-hAbiBXMLleypc%404078862-rQu0aEHG6CofY
The Fine Line Between Work and Play
You will need to invest some time into this for it to work well. You (or someone) will need to "hang out" at Twitter at least a couple of times a day, perhaps a half-hour each time. During that time you can follow additional people who have followed you, look for other people to follow who would be interested in your offerings, and visit other sites of interest that your followers have pointed out to you. Be sure to make comments about others' Tweets that you like. Most of all, be authentic. Show your human side and don't be afraid to just talk about nothing. If you only talk about your products and services, people will get bored with you and lose interest. Say what's on your mind, use humor, and reply to others who are also just chatting for fun. This way, you'll have the best of both social media worlds!
Jill
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-1glpohqTsypCY%404078863-7xO9XDhNqfeQQ
Share your comments and thoughts here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-kU86iwfPZ6lXE%404078864-YM5oB5yC/UWdw
(P.S. If anyone would like to republish the above article, please email me your request and where it will reside, and I'll send you a short bio you can use with it for your site.)
____________Only for HRA Newsletter Subscribers!_____________
$100 Off Our Basic SEO Consultation Package
______________________________________________________
Q. Why isn't my website performing as it should?
A. If your website isn't bringing you targeted traffic that converts,
then it's broken.
SEO Consultant Jill Whalen has over 14 years of experience reviewing
websites and explaining exactly how to fix them.
Learn more about our Basic SEO Consultation Package now:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-U4QlpcfDun95o%404078865-TVZEYWgQUFBHE
To save $100, please mention this offer on our request info form.
Offer good for contracts signed between now and March 31, 2009.
______________________________________________________
~~~Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week~~~
++Offering a Discount in Exchange for a Link?++
Forum member "whitespark" is wondering if he could get in trouble for asking his customers to add a link to his website in exchange for a discount on a future purchase.
Many members think it's not a good idea. I personally think it's pretty clever. What do you think?
Share your comments and read what others think here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-v3g.EcPCbPLpE%404078866-5flUjpP8GOkzc
______________High Rankings SEO Training___________________
2009 SEO Training Classes – April, May, June and July
_______________________________________________________
One-day SEO Training Class for beginners to intermediate learners.
You will learn what SEO is and isn't, as well as what you need to do
to bring in more search engine visitors who are seeking out exactly
what you offer.
Class is limited to 6 students, and we will work on YOUR specific
website issues.
Only two seats left for the April class:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-Sx2ipXv4D3Ywo%404078867-HdhtwKiH5CAPo
_______________________________________________________
~~~Advisor Wrap-up~~~
That's all for today!
I am so busy that my head is spinning lately. Preparing for the upcoming April Website Marketing Workshops is taking up most of my time, but along with that I have a number of side projects going on. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, but trying to stay organized.
In addition, I'm speaking at SES NYC next week. Be sure to say hi if you're there. I'll definitely be hanging around most of Tuesday.
Catch you in two! – Jill
Looking for SEO Services, Consulting or Training?
See what High Rankings has to offer:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-UtfmJ.1iUdIcY%404078868-.yUdcnEtX.DUk
Today's issue is also available online in the newsletter archives:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-iPpu.quMYqByQ%404078869-GxRl/tzjjAy6I
If you prefer RSS/XML, please feel free to use our newsfeed here:
http://m1e.net/c?86763832-nhxq9D6GWP.GU%404078870-J36XcX1lO516%2e
Paid sponsor ads are clearly marked as advertisements and neither High Rankings nor Jill Whalen take any responsibility for the claims made within these ads, nor the websites they point to. Paid ads do not constitute an endorsement for the products, services or companies advertising in the newsletter. Please visit our sponsors and use your own due diligence for any purchases you make on the Internet.
Switch to the HTML version, change your email settings or unsubscribe here:
http://www.listcast.com/x?u=86763832j-666875d8
Email list management powered by Listcast
