OneTipADay - What Will You Learn Today?

Posted: 04 May 2011 07:46 AM PDT

Boosting your rankings with the search engines does not depend soley on links you've dropped on other pages and the niche language used, but also on social media.

Twitter—and maybe even Facebook—influence those rankings. To get on board with the latest SEO trend, it's time to incorporate geolocation Tweets into your strategy.

Google and Bing have recently confirmed that they both use Twitter as a measure to rank pages in search results. Although it's unclear how heavily the search engine leviathans weigh Tweets, it's still worthwhile to utilize a free social network to bolster your rankings. After all, there may be hundreds of factors that determine rankings, so it's up to you to employ every SEO strategy under the sun.

Tweeting your location is optional, and gives you flexibility on how specific you'd like to be. You have the option of including the town, neighborhood or exact point (coordinates) from where you Tweeted. However, such specificity will not help your rankings as it will not develop any consistency of location.

Therefore, it's probably most strategic to set your Twitter location as fixed to one city. There has yet to be a major study to confirm how the search engines use geolocation Tweets for rankings, but a mini study at SharkSEO in January found some conclusive results.

It seemed that Google recognized Tweets that had pages specific to a country, and SharkSEO's study the two countries were the U.S. and the United Kingdom. SharkSEO hypothesized that sites popular in a region or country did not get a boost in global rankings, only in rankings exclusive to U.K. for example.

To gainfully capitalize on geolocated Tweets, many companies large and small will hire an internet marketing consultant. For a more “DIY” solution, this writer found both SEOBook.com and SEOmoz helpful.

Doing it yourself (at least the actual task of Tweeting) isn't difficult, it's simply a matter of Tweeting links to your pages and including your location. But analyzing your rankings as a result of your geolocated Tweets may be more difficult and require expertise. Either way, the energy and money is well spent if Google places you in those much-coveted high rankings.

Building a Better Website as a Part of Your Marketing Plan

Posted: 03 May 2011 07:46 AM PDT

For those looking for a merely cost-effective route to build a website, you may be disappointed by the options and results, which could end up doing harm to the overall success of your business in the long run. Sites, such GoDaddy, allow you to cheaply and quickly display your content, but hiring a professional to create a visually appealing site can presents chances to connect with potential clients and business contacts. Even if you're working on a budget, you should factor in some key components in order to build a better web site that will engage its viewers.

Some of the characteristics that make a great website include:

Clearly Identifiable Goals
Easy to Navigate
Visually Attractive, but Not Graphically Overwhelming
Informative, Consistently Updated Content

First, consider who your audience is, and create content based around that simple concept. If you hope to provide services for customers, you should understand that there's a lot of competition online. You will want your site to look credible and professional, as people become increasingly familiar with the Internet and inundated with content on a daily basis. You should want to stand out, not blend in. If your presentation looks homemade, users aren't going to see you as an authority, and you could end up driving away potential clients and customers. Presentation is the key and the more professional your website looks and feels the more likely consumers are going to view you as an authority.

You may have a website that is organic and seamless that presents information to users in a thoughtful and coherent way but you're still not generating the kind of profits or traffic that you would like. Introducing good search engine optimization (SEO) tools into your website is the best way to quickly make strides towards improving the success of your business. There are many companies you can hire that will offer their advice, show what's working with your website, and how you can improve it. SEO will also increase your online presence, and search engine ranking, while balancing any negative feedback that your company has received in the past. It's a multi-lateral approach to make a business stronger and more effective.

If you hope to include a multi-media approach to supplement the additional features on your website, you may want to consider professional advice or assistance. A multi-media approach is always good for a web sites overall appearance. Including video, audio, and other web content is a great way to engage clients and potential customers and make your services stand out but you'll want to combine all of these elements in a way that seems fluid and seamless. A web site, can at times, seem thrown together with video that doesn't run smooth and audio that doesn't work. This will definitely end up hurting your efficacy. Use video management software and other devices that will make your website's presentation coherent and seamless.

Whether you're building a website or simply looking to improve upon your existing content, look at some of these approaches that will go a long way towards establishing your site as a major competitor in the online market. Think of your website as the face of your business, and give your face the best presentation so the business can be relevant in a technological culture.