Posts Tagged ‘USASEOPros’

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USASEOPros Surpasses 6 Million Search Placements

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

After roughly half a decade in business, USASEOPros has reached a milestone by providing clients with over 6 million high ranking placements in search engines.

“This is a great achievement for our company,” said Steve Howe, Operations Manager for USASEOPros. “We work very hard to give our clients the best possible results, and this shows we’re doing it right.”

The Las Vegas-based online marketing and advertising company has been very satisfied with the results they’ve been getting, and they believe the continued success is partially due to their ability to adapt.

“The search engines are constantly changing how they decide to rank Web sites, and we make sure to change our strategies accordingly,” said Howe. “We’ve made major updates to our in-house content management system (CMS), and we make sure to keep an eye on what Google, Bing and others are doing.”

Instead of relying on a third-party CMS to create new Web sites, USASEOPros has a development team on staff that can make changes on the spot and update the system as needed. This allows the company to meet the needs of their clients in a much more efficient manner, said Howe.

“Over the last few months we’ve been able to speed up client sites by 95 percent, which is important since Google is beginning to put more weight on site speed,” said Howe. “Without a development team on staff there’s no way we’d be able to improve things as quickly as we do.”

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USA SEO Pros is a search engine optimization company and has been in business for over 5 years. With thousands of satisfied clients and a team of highly skilled professionals, USA SEO Pros has continued to grow and expand its business. Based in Las Vegas, Nev., the company has built itself into a leader in the online advertising and marketing field. USASEOPros.com currently holds over 6 million placements for its clients and uses its knowledge and expertise to continue to increase that number.

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Affordable SEO Firm: Discovering the Reality Between Quality and Cost

Friday, August 21st, 2009

money-balancing-scales

Here’s an unsurprising news flash: top-shelf online marketing consultation can cost a bundle.

Many small business owners are often startled when they’re looking for an affordable SEO firm and find that services can run into five figures.

Can SEO firms really justify charging $10,000 for a Web site consultation?

Like many things in life, you get what you pay for with online marketing. Sure, you can start a pay-per-click campaign with Google Adwords with just a couple hundred dollars, but you won’t be able to afford many competitive keywords for very long.

You absolutely can hire an SEO consultant for $499 and receive some tips about how to improve your ranking – but will that $499 really improve your business exposure?

As a small business owner, what you’re really looking for is the most bang for your buck – the best return on your advertising investment.

maximum-seo-roi

Your first step is deciding which type of online marketing you wish to do. You can choose to do it yourself, or find a professional online marketer to do the work for you.

SEOmoz did a great article a while back that broke down average cost ranges for a variety of services. A small business owner might be stunned to see a 1-day SEO training seminar run upwards of $12,000.

Meanwhile, even low end website design, development and marketing can cost $5,000, the SEOmoz article says.

So how do you strike the balance? How do you find a mixture of quality online marketing work and something that fits within your budget?

At USASEOPros we offer a number of different sized SEO packages with services starting as low as $125 an hour. Our keyword packages range from large to small, with something to fit every business owner’s budget.

And quality? Well we work hard to put our clients on the first page of organic search results across many search engines, including Google, Bing and Yahoo (which now shares Bing’s search results). As you can see below, we are quite successful.

Affordable and Effective SEO Firm

You can compare the cost of advertising across a number of mediums. But you won’t find the results and the return on your investment like you’ll see with search engine optimization.

I’m reminded of the story about a plumber who charged a customer $500 for simply tightening a bolt. When the customer asked why it was so expensive to simply use a wrench to turn a bolt, the plumber replied the cost was knowing which bolt to turn.

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USASEOPros Reaches 5 Million Placements

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

Las Vegas, NV, August 13, 2009 – Internet advertising firm USASEOPros reached a new high today as it climbed above the 5 million first page placements mark.

In an industry that is dominated by statistics and numbers, the Las Vegas-based online marketing and ad company surprised even itself with the recent growth.

“I didn’t think we would have hit 5 million quite so quickly after April when we reached 4 (million),” said Steve Howe, the operations manager for USA SEO Pros. “The search engines are continuing to make changes and keep us on our toes, and the release of Bing certainly shook things up, but I’m thrilled we’re still doing so well.”

The search engine optimization industry has grown increasingly competitive over the years as the importance of search engine placement for businesses has reached the mainstream business conscious.

Howe said he thinks that search engine optimization is now being considered as an integral part of a business marketing and advertising plan.

“More and more we’re seeing start-up SEO companies flashing onto the scene, as well as small business owners tackling SEO on their own,” Howe said. “If they’ve got the time for it, great. But having a professional team working on optimizing a website is much more efficient and effective than going it alone.”

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USA SEO Pros is an affordable SEO firm and has been in business for over 4 years. With thousands of satisfied clients and team of highly skilled professionals, USA SEO Pros has continued to grow and expand its business. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company has built itself into a leader in the online advertising and marketing field. USASEOPros.com currently holds over 5 million placements for its clients and uses its knowledge and expertise to continue to grow that number.

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Online Marketing: Carving Out Your Corner of the Internet

Monday, July 20th, 2009

chainsaw-wood-carving

The internet is a giant place these days. It hasn’t always been so big, but it is now estimated that there are some 232 million websites in the world.

To be successful at online marketing and business building, you need to spend some time outfitting your corner of the internet. Start by defining the general area or industry you want to be in, and it’s time to get down to detail.

sand-scupting

I’ll use USASEOPros as an example. We’re in the SEO and online marketing industry, and so our general corner of the internet is related to marketing.

But to further define our business, we’ve added a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a StumbleUpon account, a Sphinn account, and many others.

Pictured: The Internet

Pictured: The Internet

Above photo credit: Sebastian Prooth.

We use these tools to participate in our corner of the internet as a whole. While on Sphinn, I try to read any and all articles that other people share that I find interesting. The same is true on Twitter – we pay attention to the people we’re following and what they’re saying.

By the same token, we use our blog and the social media sites to share our own thoughts and ideas about the industry. This is the paying attention to detail part.

A blog is an excellent place to start. We try to use our blog as the main landing place for people stumbling across our company, so when we set up social networking accounts, we use the blog URL.

Your blog lets you give your visitors an idea of what the company is about and your own thoughts on the industry you inhabit. Even though a mission statement is a great way to explicitly state the corporate culture, a blog can feel a lot less formal.

It’s with your social media accounts that you can further flesh out your online presence and add some more detail to your corporate identity online.

We focus a lot on Twitter, Facebook and Sphinn, but it really depends on what you feel comfortable with and what industry you’re in. For example, Kaboodle is a social shopping network where the community makes recommendations. Do with that what you will!

Most importantly, as with any online marketing and social media dabbling, remember you’re representing your company as a whole. In fact, you’re painting your own company portrait out there on the internet! You’re in charge of the brush strokes, so when you’re trying to carve out your corner of the web, think about how you’re representing your company.

painting-a-self-portrait

After all, you don’t want this sort of snafu to become a part of your corner of the internet!

By: Zack S.

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Posted in Blog Posts | 1 Comment »

Things NOT To Do on Twitter: Or Why I Won’t Follow You Back

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Let me preface by saying I don’t think my Twitter account is better than yours. There are some powerful, influential individuals on the micro blogging site who share a lot of great information, and there are some small-scale individuals who tweet some great stuff too.

Over at @realusaseopros, we try to share information about online marketing, SEO, public relations, advertising etc that we find interesting and hope our followers will as well.

Sure, we tweet when we post a new blog, or if there’s a press release done about us – what company doesn’t?

But there’s a line to be drawn with the way some people use Twitter. Step over the line and you risk losing Twitter followers.

We’re thankful for each and every single person/company/bot that chooses to follow us. Every follower is a chance for us to communicate, share ideas and potentially learn from that person.

There are a few caveats though, and they go as follows:

1) I won’t follow you back if you have a terribly written or non-existent biography on your Twitter profile. If you can’t spell “internet”, you’re not going to get my attention.

Similarly, if you don’t have anything written in your bio, I won’t follow you. Trying to guess what you do from a profile picture will get me nowhere and it’s simply not a good branding practice.

Even if you’re simply an at-home marketer trying to make a dollar, write as much. You don’t have to be Guy Kawasaki to be interesting. I look at every single person who starts following the @realusaseopros account. I hover over everyone’s name a read their bio description before deciding (quickly) whether they merit a further look.

2) Along the same line – if you don’t have a profile picture and are simply using the default image, I won’t follow you.

It doesn’t take much to put up an image of you/your company logo/a block of cheese onto Twitter, so do it! It makes you and your Twitter account at least appear more legitimate and legitimacy is what it’s all about!

3) If after I visit your actual profile page I see that you have 3,972 following and 3,899 followers, but only four updates, I’m not going to follow you.

Sorry if that seems harsh, but unless you’re a celebrity or politician, that many followers/following screams spam. I know you can buy entire chunks of people to follow who will auto-follow back, and I’m not interested in helping you pump up your numbers.

If you have interesting things in your Twitter stream, then great! But I’m guessing those four measly updates weren’t so earth-shaking to merit almost 4,000 followers.

4) If you are following me, but what you tweet about isn’t at all related to marketing, SEO, advertising, public relations, branding…then I won’t follow you. It’s nothing personal - I may even like your band’s music! - but we try to keep this account a business one.

5) This last one I’ve written about before, but it fits this article too: having only self-promotion in your Twitter stream.

Maybe you’ve got a great bio description and a good picture, but if when I arrive at your page and every single tweet you have is about your own content, I’m probably not going to follow you.

Of course that’s not the case if you’re CNN, Mashable and others who are centers of information for many of the rest of us. But if you’re a home marketer and you only ever tweet about your own “miracle panacea for online link building”, I won’t follow you back.

Share information that you find interesting across the internet. Let me know how watching your neighbor mowing the lawn gave you an idea about how to market yourself online. It’s your account, and they’re your messages, but if you want to retain audience attention, make it interesting!

We try to use Twitter as a tool to listen, communicate and participate in a large, open community. There are a lot of users on Twitter, and although growth has slowed somewhat on the site, that means there are an ever-growing number of voices to listen to. We appreciate everyone who takes the time to follow our stream and listen to what we have to say. But users who trend to the above list will probably not get our follow.

That being said, we’re always interested in learning from new and interesting people – you!

By: Zack S.

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6 Tips for Behavior and Managing Social Media Community Profiles

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Congratulations, you’ve gotten your company or brand name on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg and a number of other social media sites…but now what?

Your first post or two was rejected by the community and marked as spam even though another community accepted it. You tried to comment on a post and got thumbed down. Meanwhile, your Twitter profile, which quickly gained 250 followers has now sunk to 89, and you haven’t tweeted more than once a week for the past month.

Social media Web site profiles and accounts can be a powerful and effective way to reach out to your audience, but they need to be handled with care and thought.

#1 Don’t simply leap into community discussion without first listening. This means don’t submit your latest blog post, just because you love it, to each and every social news site. Spend some time on the site and see what is accepted and what gets rejected.

Every site has different moderators, different rules, and different levels of community acceptance. Twitter is fairly straightforward. You’re welcome to spam your stream with self-promotion, and nobody can give you a thumbs down – but they can unfollow you.

When I write a blog article for USASEOPros, I don’t always rush out to submit it to Sphinn – an internet marketing news and discussion forum. I try to participate in the community, “sphinn” articles that others have submitted that I enjoyed reading and found relevant and yes – submit some of my own stuff.

But not everything will get through, and that’s going to be something you’ll want to keep track of. If your first five submits were accepted on Reddit, but you last one wasn’t, what was different with it?

#2 This really should go without saying, but unless it’s a political or religious site, or that’s what your company is involved with, keep politics and religion out of your discussion.

Those are two topics that cannot result in a victorious argument – one that is sure to generate. Someone somewhere will disagree with your stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and you’re simply going to end up in a flame war, potentially damaging your brand name.

#3 Try to be professional. This varies site to site, but if you’re managing a company profile on Twitter, then tweeting about Pamela Anderson’s latest foray isn’t acceptable.

I found this interesting blog post about never LOL-ing on Reddit. If you’re trying to promote a business or brand, that’s probably sound advice.

Keep your responses to blog comments and your own comments to thoughtful, professional language. If someone disagrees with your post, thank them for reading the article, and perhaps offer a (polite) rebuttal of your own.

#4 Don’t make it all about you. If you’re managing your company Twitter account, don’t make it a habit to only tweet about your own stuff. Share industry-related things that interest you AS A PERSON. Make the people who follow your feed feel like there is a real person behind the profile page, not just a corporate entity.

I wrote an article about Twitter spam, and I said one of the easiest ways to drive people away from following you is by only posting about yourself and automating the process.

Yes, Twitter can be exploited and used by a number of automated systems. You can schedule your messages to go off every 12 minutes for a certain period of time on a certain day. You can auto-DM and auto-follow people, but are those things that really going to get you the results you’re looking for?

Having 12,000 Twitter followers is surely an ego-booster, but what if 11,824 of them never click on your links and never read your blogs or shared articles?

I would prefer to have just 100 followers if I knew that all 100 of them were actively engaged with my content and communicating constructively with me.

The same goes for sites like Reddit, Digg, etc. Please don’t let your ego get the best of you on these social sites. Other companies and other people can write quality content and can create something shareable. Don’t shy away from spreading the good word!

#5 Try not to simply dip your toes with these sites. You’ll see much better results if you actively manage your Twitter account day to day, rather than simply appearing now and then after you’ve written a new blog post or your company submitted a press release.

We have several team members who are active on a large number of social media sites, every single day. Yes, as an individual it can get a little crazy to manage 22 different accounts and post, comment, and digg every day, so you might pick just a few to get start.

#6 Trolling has (unfortunately) become part of social media – try not to let personal emotions affect your responses.

If you manage social media accounts for a business, you’re representing more than just yourself online. You have an entire company that you’re speaking for, intentionally or not. Just because someone lashes out at you on a social media site does not mean you need to bare your fangs.

In fact, it’s almost inevitable that you’re going to run across someone who flat out doesn’t like you or your company. Deal with it professionally. The Air Force has a (now) famous blog assessment chart that pretty accurately dictates what your type of response should be.

Air Force Blog Assesment

Air Force Blog Assesment

More than anything when it comes to social media, remember that this is an important avenue to reach out directly to the people you hope to sell to/work with. Keep it composed, keep it professional, and keep it friendly!

By: Zack S.

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Twitter and Spam: How to Lose Tweeps and Ostracize Yourself

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

solo-light-fixture

Just how powerful has Twitter become?

Well, for a week or two in April, even the front page of CNN.com kept updated headlines about the race to 1 million followers. Ashton Kutcher won the race, and now has a site-leading 2 million+ followers.

But when does communication become shouting? When does sharing your thoughts become stifling the communication of others?

Basically – when does Twittering stop being a free flow of communication and start being spam?

The idea for this blog was driven this home over the Memorial Day weekend. USASEOPros has our business Twitter account, but some of us in the office also use it personally.

Living in Las Vegas and being in the SEO and online marketing industry, I follow a number of people in the same local industry.

It helps me keep an eye on what others are doing and saying. I also occasionally bounce marketing ideas off other minds.

Twitter is a great tool for exactly this: communicating.

In the office, USASEOPros uses Twitter to talk about interesting industry related blogs, articles and ideas. Sure, we will tweet about our own blogs, but the re-tweets and sharing of other authors’ stuff definitely outweighs our own self-promotion.

This weekend however, I had one person I was following that seemed to be on auto-pilot. There was a steady flow of tweets, each about an individual blog post that they had written.

It wasn’t exactly every 5 minutes – but it was close to it. I’m not sure if this user was using an auto-bot or not, but if they weren’t, they’re very dedicated to steady tweeting!

That isn’t the right way to use Twitter. When you’re tweeting that frequently, and all you’re “saying” is promoting your own content and your own services, people will stop listening.

Okay, maybe Guy Kawasaki can get away with it. But I don’t follow him. I no longer follow the user from Memorial Day weekend.

Businesses will probably continue to use Twitter as a soapbox, but unless they also share ideas and insights into the industry, special offers for their Twitter followers or provide USEFUL information, people will stop listening.

So if you’re using an auto-bot, STOP! Twitter should be used by someone in your company who knows the ins and outs of the business and can actively engage and converse with the community.

Don’t use an automated system to find followers and don’t simply auto-follow everyone who adds you. If you’re a business, then follow people in your industry. If someone interesting follows you, by all means return the favor.

But Twitter isn’t simply about numbers. Being at the top of the heap for followers doesn’t mean you are engaging in worthwhile conversations or converting web traffic to your site. Use Twitter as an individual that represents your company, and you’ll see real results.

So how to start…

First and foremost: learn how to use the @ function. You can use this function to communicate directly to one person on Twitter, and you can monitor who is trying to communicate with you.

There are also a number of great programs and websites that will help you use Twitter. Tweetdeck is perfect for managing your friends and followers from Facebook and Twitter.

Splitweet is great managing multiple Twitter accounts and for brand management. You can very easily see who is talking about you and respond quickly to questions or complaints.

Above all, remember that you are part of a community on Twitter. If you want people to listen to what you have to say, or visit your blog, give them something worth their time.

Don’t preach from the pulpit, but engage in conversations and discussions down on the street. You’ll find Twitter to be a much useful tool for online marketing and public relations if you take this approach!

By: Zack S.

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Posted in Blog Posts | 5 Comments »

USASEOPros Parent Company Awarded New Federal Trademark

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Las Vegas, NV, May 20, 2009 – The parent company of internet advertising firm USASEOPros has announced approval from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a new trademark under the name of Dynamic Web Products.

Business Development Institute is a Las Vegas-based search engine optimization company and they are in charge of USA SEO Pros and Dynamic Web Products. Until recently, Dynamic Web Products operated without the official stamp from the U.S. PTO. Now the federal government has recognized the trademark rights for the corporate entity and will help protect the name and identity of the company.

USA SEO Pros works in the field of search engine optimization, while Dynamic Web Products owns and operates the computer software that runs the entire system. Under United States trademark code, Dynamic Web Products now holds a Class 9 trademark for its computer software.

For more information regarding the Patent and Trademark Office guidelines, please visit the government website at http://www.uspto.gov.

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Business Development Institute is the parent company of USASEOPros and Dynamic Web Products. BDI operates in the search engine optimization and internet marketing industry in Nevada. USASEOPros and Dynamic Web Products comprise the larger parent company as a whole, with each serving a role in the SEO process. Dynamic Web Products operates the proprietary computer software system, while USA SEO Pros performs the SEO.

USA SEO Pros is a search engine optimization company and has been in business for over 6 years. With thousands of satisfied clients and team of highly skilled professionals, USA SEO Pros has continued to grow and expand its business. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company has built itself into a leader in the online advertising and marketing field. USASEOPros.com currently holds over 4.4 million placements for its clients and uses its knowledge and expertise to continue to grow that number.

By: Zack S.

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The 8 Sites You Must Target for Online Marketing Success

Monday, May 18th, 2009

It’s hard to argue with raw numbers. We spent some time scouring Alexa for Web site statistics, and have come up with a ranking of sorts for social media sites.

Everyone knows that Twitter is the big up and comer. If your business isn’t already utilizing this powerful real-time site, you need to be!

twitter-fail-whale

But did you know that as a business, you should focus more on Twitter than you should on Digg? Or that Buzznet is likely your best bet for promoting your band? How about that more German internet users use Twitter than Indian users, but India trumps Germany on StumbleUpon?

So without further ado, and it absolute order, here are the 8 sites you MUST target for online marketing success.

1. YouTube.

youtube_logo

We’ve all visited the site. There are well over 100 million videos on the site – perhaps closer to 200 million. The top videos on the site have attracted over 100 million views.

While it’s a safe assumption that your latest marketing video about the incredible health effects of acai berries won’t reach that number, if you’re creative with it, you very well may go viral.

YouTube pulls in some 18.06 percent of global internet users. That’s behind only Google and Yahoo, according to Alexa. YouTube also has 489,059 sites linking into it. Thanks to the embed feature found on most YouTube videos, that will only grow.

So what can you do to target your audience on YouTube?

Well the most obvious place to start is to join as a member and create a user name – ideally your business name. Make some constructive comments on other videos that interest you, and that have to do with your industry.

As much as you enjoy the latest Mariah Carey music video, your business account shouldn’t be used for simply saying “That’s awesome!”

Your next step is to upload some content of your own. If your business is the sales, installation and maintenance of pools, then adding some video of an actual installation might generate some interest in the niche community.

Or how about creating a video with you sharing your professional insights and tips for pool maintenance and chemicals? Sure, you’re giving away some free advice – but you’re also establishing yourself as a trusted authority on the subject.

Google is also very fond of YouTube videos, and they will rank very well if you take some time and consideration before you name and describe your videos. A title of “Personal Pool Maintenance Tips and Tricks” would probably rank very well on the search engines.

2. Twitter.

twitter-logo

It seems we can’t go anywhere these days without hearing about Twitter. Celebrities are talking about it. Talk shows are talking about it. Even the White House is on Twitter!

But how can you make it work for your business?

Again – the first step is to get on there! If you aren’t already, you better hope your business name isn’t already taken. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt to head over to NameChk and see what sites still have your business name available. Then get to signing up!

Twitter will work best if you pair it with a blog (see #3 on this list). That way you can write content on the blog and share it on Twitter.

Assuming you can provide some engaging content, others will re-tweet your information, and your name and blog can be spread around the community.

I would also suggest using Twitter to form some relationships with others in your industry or related industries. Look for people who may have similar business interests.

Maybe someone who offers pool cleaning services would serve as a solid “tweep” on Twitter. You can share with your followers their latest sales offer, and they can recommend you to people who are looking to invest in a pool.

Twitter also serves as a great way to monitor what people are saying about your company and industry. While you probably won’t see exposure and discussion on the same level as you will about Southwest Airlines, you might run across a tweet or two about the cost estimates on a new pool or what the best chemical brands are to use.

There’s your chance to jump into the discussion and offer people some professional, valuable insight!

3. Blogger.

blogger_logo

You can actually use any blogging service site like WordPress, or have one built into your home page, but we chose Blogger due to its rank and global exposure.

Blogger pulls in 8.29 percent of global internet users and has over 430,000 sites linking to it. Compare that to WordPress at 4.76 percent and 135,535 sites linking in. Either one will serve its purpose, but more internet users are familiar with Blogger than WordPress.

A blog is your company’s chance to engage in discussion with your audience. It serves as an excellent way to reach out to your potential customers and provide them with news, information, offers and upcoming events.

When USASEOPros wanted to have an online sale, we first announced it on our SEO blog and then our Twitter account.

A lot of companies use a blog as a means for the CEO to communicate with the community. A blog gives the company a more personal feel to it, and makes it seem friendlier.

Not everyone wants to do business with “Joe’s Pools”, but if they can see a picture of Joe and read his thoughts and insights into the industry, they may find him and his company more approachable.

Any time you are writing online, I would suggest keeping in mind some simple search engine optimization techniques. You are of course writing for your audience, but don’t forget that search engines will find your blog too.

Use some key words that pertain to your industry and that will rank well on search engines like Google. Maybe title one of your blog entries like “Insight and Hints for Maintaining your Pool from Joe’s Pools”.

If people comment on your blog posts, respond to them! You can gain some great feedback from blog comments, and if you are able to answer their questions, you may just earn yourself another client!

4. Wikipedia.

wikipedialogo

This one is a little tough. Wikipedia cracks down on promoting for promotion’s sake. You can’t simply add an entry about Joe’s Pools and say how great it is and expect the entry to last.

But if you can offer up a valid, informative Wikipedia.org entry, it very well may last. You can use the entry to link to your website, your blog, and include industry information.

Best of all, Wikipedia.org ranks very well on sites like Google and Yahoo. A Wikipedia entry about your company could quickly come to dominate the search results for key words in your industry.

If you’re successful, you’ll enjoy the fact that visitors come to Wikipedia a whopping 14.57 percent from Google. This means that nearly 15 percent of people first do a search on Google, and then head to Wikipedia to learn more.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they were heading to YOUR Wiki entry to learn more about YOUR company?

5. LinkedIn.

linkedin_logo

This is a networking site of over 25 million users who are billed as experienced professionals. Over 150 industries are represented, and users are connected through jobs, education, and friendships.

The site is an excellent place to find a professional in your industry, in your neighborhood. As a business owner, you can connect to colleagues, clients and partners. With a profile, you’re also increasing you business exposure and visibility in a professional networking environment.

LinkedIn can also help you target direct sales for your company.

While LinkedIn may not be the greatest solution for our fictitious “Joe’s Pools”, it might work wonders for an office supply company or a human resources company.

If you would like to learn more about the incredible power of LinkedIn, here’s a great article about effective LinkedIn marketing. It’s a little old (2007), but much of the information is still relevant.

6. Digg.

digg-logo7

Digg is a social news site that is essentially a central hub of information. Users can “digg” information they deem interesting, and the most “dugg” articles will find their way to the top of the site.

Start by creating a user profile with your company, and then get to reading and posting. We have an article about this called Spinning, Digging, Stumbling and Beyond: Profit for Free Online if you would like some more thoughts on this topic.

Digg has become one of the go-to sites for the latest and greatest internet news, photos, videos and articles. Users link the original content to Digg’s site, and then you can start digging from there.

Again, this is a site that will really benefit if you are able to offer your own content. Publish your videos on YouTube and then put them on Digg. Write a blog post, and then head over to Digg.

Users head to Digg as a news/entertainment aggregate – make sure they’re finding your company there!

The United States and India are the two biggest users of Digg. Over 43 percent of Digg’s traffic comes from the U.S., while India contributes over 13 percent. It’s important to keep in mind your potential target audience with each of these sites as not every site it big in every country.

If you happen to own a company that does exporting to India – or you’ve been considering making a move overseas, Digg might be one of your best bets for attracting interest there. Our number 8, StumbleUpon, gets 16 percent of its traffic from the country too, while Indian users make up over 14 percent on LinkedIn.

7. Facebook.

facebook-logo

With the raging popularity of Facebook these days, you might be a little surprised to see this one so far down the list.

It’s not because of Facebook’s lack of reach. Nearly 17 percent of global internet users visit Facebook, and the average time on the site tops out over 25 minutes a day.

But Facebook is not LinkedIn. It CAN serve as a professional profile, but the largest portion of users fall within the 18-24 age range.

Jello shots and keg stands may make for a fun picture, but they probably won’t help you sell your office supplies.

Creating a fan page can work for Coca Cola, but will it work for “Joe’s Pools”? Probably not.

That being said, it is probably a good idea for Joe to have a profile page, complete with information about his company, what he offers and how to get in touch with Joe for a beautiful new pool.

Facebook is a wonderful resource for targeting specific age groups, but it’s more valuable to small businesses as an advertising site than a networking site.

The site can be a gold mine for companies that offer consumable products (think Red Bull, the Whopper, and the aforementioned Coca Cola), but unless you’re hawking the hottest new energy drink or a brand new line of clothing, you’re probably better off focusing most of your social network efforts elsewhere.

8. StumbleUpon.

stumbleupon-logo

StumbleUpon is another social news site, similar to Digg, which works as an internet aggregate. It pulls in content that is “stumbled” by its users, and promotes the content on its site.

Although smaller in size than Digg, StumbleUpon still has a very respectable 118,000 sites linking into it.

Again, you’re going to want to create a user profile with your company name and then use the site to become part of the community: comment and “stumble” interesting blogs and articles while sharing your own content.

There are a number of other sites similar to StumbleUpon and Digg. Mixx is one that seems to be growing in numbers, but it’s still much smaller than these two.

It’s better to focus your efforts on a few of these sites instead of trying to spread your efforts and energy thin. You’ll get a much better response if you can spend some real time on StumbleUpon and Digg than if you scatter your content about.

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So there you have it. Our 8 sites you must target for online marketing success.

You’ll notice that many of these sites work well together. That’s the idea. You should have a network of sites that promote your business and build an online identity of your company.

There are some interesting statistics that link many of these sites together as well.

For YouTube, Facebook was the third most popular upstream link and the second most popular downstream link.

Over 9 percent of LinkedIn visitors came to the site after first visiting Facebook. Twitter is the fifth most visited site after visitors stop by Digg – they’re probably heading off to tweet about an article they found!

Through it all, Google reigns supreme though. Amongst all 8 sites, every single number one upstream AND downstream site was Google.

That means that users are first searching for content on Google, finding a profile or content on one of these 8 sites, and then heading there.

It also means that after reading or watching the content on those 8 sites, Internet users are heading back to Google to learn more. Clearly you want to get your business name on the top of Google!

With our sites, we started from the top, and worked our way on down. First and foremost is the content. From YouTube videos to Tweeting to a blog, you MUST give your audience something to digest.

You cannot promote your company on sites like Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Digg, Facebook and StumbleUpon with giving them something to talk about.

Bonnie Rait had it right all along apparently.

By: Zack S.

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Posted in Blog Posts | 4 Comments »

Taking Advantage of Twitter to Boost SEO

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

By now, if you aren’t already on the social networking Web site Twitter, you’ve no doubt heard about it. Twitter has been making headlines almost from the moment it appeared in 2006.

Twitter’s number of visitors has surged 131 percent in the U.S. last month, with 5 million new users joining the site in March. Considering how popular Twitter is worldwide, the number of user is expected to grow exponentially. This post on TechCrunch forecasts 50 million global Twitter users by the summer, 2009.

So what does all this mean to you, the business owner? It means that if you aren’t already taking advantage of this real-time communication tool, you need to lock in your user name! The last thing you want to happen is for someone to register your company name and camp out on what should be your account.

The Twitter platform already has a built-in search engine for you to quickly find what people are saying about your company (if anything!) or your industry. Many major companies like Southwest and CNN are already active on Twitter and have been able to communicate with their audiences constructively and efficiently. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what the people you’re trying to work with are saying about your business?!

But what does this mean for search engine optimization? Well here in Las Vegas, USASEOPros uses Twitter on a daily basis to glean information about the SEO industry, keep tabs on communications regarding the company, and responding in kind. Twitter serves as a wonderfully efficient platform to “keep our ears to the ground”. If you’re interested, you can follow our Twitter account online.

For the average business user, merely creating a Twitter account and giving the occasional update will help boost your online exposure. Our Twitter profile is currently ranked on the first page for Google for various keywords related to our business and company name. We’re frequently adding to our following/followers lists, and we make efforts every day to tweet about industry-related articles and blog posts. Twitter also adds a meta description to your user profile, so it will increase your visibility on the search engines with some personal branding.

Links are a very important part of SEO. The more (legitimate) sites you have linking back to your home page, the more relevant search engines like Google deem you to be. Having a Twitter account that links back to your Web site is a great way to get started. Even better, you can tweet about posts and content you have on your site, and provide links back to the content. If you’re doing a good enough job, you’ll have people actually help you by re-tweeting your links!

Interaction also has an impact with SEO. Sites like Google, Yahoo and MSN take into account how fluid your website is. It’s helpful to have fresh content on the site frequently. Placing a link on your Web site with your Twitter feed will keep your site up to date and let visitors know of another avenue to contact you.

It’s also possible to use Twitter to spot trends on popular topics that you can potentially glean some exposure from. If you operate a solar panel business, attaching your name to the CNN/Ashton Kutcher race probably wouldn’t have helped you much. But if CNN publishes an article about the positive effects of home solar panel installation and the Twitter universe is discussing it, it might not hurt to chime in with your own personal knowledge.

Most importantly, Twitter can be a tool to help you learn. You’ll come across interesting blog posts, new articles and commentary within your industry that you may not even be aware of! Twitter is a place of discovery and community. As you share your knowledge, you’ll be simultaneously increasing the amount of exposure your business getting and improving your SEO.

By: Zack S.

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Posted in Blog Posts | 1 Comment »

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