How Does Social Media and SEO Work Together?

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In order to make your on line website be as successful as it can be you need to understand and use both social media and SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is a means to attract clients to your website. When you set up an SEO optimized website by using strong keywords and good content, you allow search engine websites to find, evaluate and appropriately index your site. The end result is your business showing up at the top of search engine results in your niche.

Social media is a means of on-line networking that has become the forefront of advertising on the web. Everyone from politicians to charities and businesses need social media to be successful. It is how successful businesses and other entities are able to gain contacts and followers.

Today, both SEO and social media combined drive businesses to success. When the two are intertwined and used together to promote your business, results can be amazing.

Here are some things you will need to do in order to optimize your success from SEO and social media:

Link your social media networks to your website

Depending on the social media network or networks that you are using, there are different ways to do this. Post it on your page and/or make sure that you always provide a link in your signature. Links to your site from social media networks can be very powerful in driving traffic to your site.

Optimize the content on your website

Optimizing your content will be essential. If you are going to be directing traffic from social media sites to your website you need to have excellent content. If your content is less than stellar, this could hurt. Many social media sites have areas to comment or grade your site. If your site is not up to par this could hurt your reviews and diminish your chances of getting new customers.

Work to build your following and fan base from social media sources

When you build a twitter following, accumulate face book fans and develop good relationships with high profile bloggers your website content will get seen more. The more your site is seen, the higher your ranking on search engines.

Provide links on your site to all of your social media platforms

You want your current customers to find you on Facebook, follow your on twitter and read your blogs. When they become your fan on Facebook their contacts will see that and may check you out. When one of their contacts becomes your fan then all of their friends will see you and so on. The possibilities are endless. Having followers on twitter, blogs and other social media sites can provide the same results.

It is easy to see how SEO and social media can work together to help build your client base. Making sure you are connected to a variety of social media networks and follow great SEO practices is vital to your success. If one area is lacking, it will not work as effectively with the other. The most successful companies, organizations, etc effectively work to connect the two.

Case Study

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Case Study

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17 SEO Tips

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SEO or search engine optimization is very important to understand if you are developing a website for your business. In order to drive traffic to your site, you need to ensure that you will show up in popular search engines. Utilizing good SEO practices allows search engine sites to easily locate, evaluate and index your site effectively. This is turn will make your site easy to find by people who are looking for information in your niche or market. Here are 17 SEO tips that will help you edge out the competition:

1.High-quality content:  Content on your site should always be skillfully written and in a unique way. Keywords and phrases should be in the content and should be carefully selected. When choosing a keyword think about what words people would use to search for what you have to offer.

2.Links: Always provide links back to your site, using the keyword as the link.

3.Quality not quantity is what counts when you are working on link building. Numerous poor quality links can actually work against you, where one good quality link might be all you need to increase traffic.

4.Use relative text around your links. While the keyword should be the link, it is also important to use descriptive text around it.

5.Use other forms of media to advertise your links. Links should be included in email communications and newsletter as they are great resources when it comes to gaining new customers.

6.Use search friendly URL’s: Make sure that URL links to all of your website pages contain keywords that make sense to the content on that page.

7.Keep content updated and fresh: In order to remain high on search engines you need to be constantly updating your site with useful new content.

8.Start a blog: Using a blog is a great way to keep your site updated and fresh. Make sure you create new blog entries at least three times per week. It is also important that blog posts provide useful information relating to your niche.

9.Use natural language: While key words are definitely important, you do not want to overdo it. Make sure that you are using keywords carefully and within the context of your text. Using your key words and phrases too often can actually work against you.

10.Keep each page of your site focused on one key word or phrase: Using too many on one page can decrease your ranking.

11.Include your location in your text.  This will increase your site’s traffic for people who are searching locally for your products, services, etc.

12.Make sure your site is user friendly: This ultimately will make your site more popular. The more your site is visited the better.

13.Create a Site Map: A site map is simply a page that links visitors back to all of the important pages on your site.

14.Use key words in your image descriptions: Any images you place on your site should have descriptive text with relative keywords.

15.Link your site with other relative sites. One great way to drive traffic to your site is to build relationships with other sites. Whenever possible partner with sites that have a good web reputation. Have the owner of the site place a link to your site and do the same for them.

16.Use Social Marketing to your advantage: Social marketing is the new advertising craze. Make sure you understand and use sites like Digg, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

17.When appropriate use videos and submit them to video sites. Sites you can submit to include YouTube, AOL, MSN and Metacafe.

Using the above tips will get your started on your way to a successful, well visited website.

Why Email Marketing Might Be the Golden Ticket for Your Business

• Category: Case Studies, Content, Email Marketing, Marketing
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You may be operating your business for just a few months or even a few years relying solely on mass snail-mail marketing campaigns. Postcards, mailers, and printed newsletter may have proved successful for you to some degree but in light of the economy and the need to streamline any business these days, it may be time to venture into the world of email marketing.

Here’s why:

Bigger Circulation Area

It is a lot of work to create, print, stamp and address thousands of marketing materials being mailed out. With email, all you need is one email address. No stamps, not printing, no wasted hours spent. Set up a form to grab addresses on your website and get the contact information for people you may not reach through print marketing campaigns. By establishing an email mailing list, you already have access to your target audience. There is less of hit-and-miss game of chance taking place.

Easier Access to Your Company

On print marketing materials, you include your name, address, telephone number and email address. All of which are necessary but not necessarily convenient for the potential customer. In an email marketing campaign, you can provide a direct link to your website or product page and all the reader needs to do is click twice to have access to your information. Recipients can also email you back immediately should they have questions.

Trackable Actions

If you use an email application for your email marketing campaign, you will be able to see who is doing what with your information. Different applications allow you to run different reports to see who clicked-through on the links, who opened the email, and more. This information is invaluable for helping you to decide what is working and what doesn’t. You can perfect your advertising campaigns as you go along.

More Acceptable

If you have been relying on cold calls to get the majority of your customers, you may already know many people don’t take too kindly to repetitive calls when they are busy. Sending email information is a less intrusive way to reach your target. Customers often will save the information in an email to come back to at a more convenient time. It will take several email contacts to gain attention but an email will likely be stored while a phone call is quickly forgotten.

Much More Affordable

Email marketing is beneficial especially to start-ups that have little marketing funds in the beginning. The costs of print ads and marketing materials can be tremendous. With email, however, the cost of a monthly service for email contact is reasonable and there is no need for a huge investment initially that may or may not pay off. Email is perhaps the most inexpensive form of marketing your business can use after word of mouth.