Archive for Great SEO
You decided to start your blog and did your research. You have a great topic and a new angle on it. The blog is looking good and there is some content in it. SEO is done. Keywords are in place and tags added. How do you get people to find your blog now?
You can just wait until the search engines crawl your blog and appear in the search results. It might take a while, but it is a possibility. Or you can speed up the process with these 3 easy to follow suggestions:
First, submit your blog to blog directories. Just Google “blog directories” and you will find a lot of them. Make sure that it is a good blog directory by looking if they have the blogs categorized, the ability to subscribe to your RSS feed and how strong the page rank of the directory is. Some good ones are: http://www.technorati.com, http://www.blogarama.com and http://blogcatalog.com. By adding your blog to a blog directory, you add to your blog’s SEO because most of the directories are well indexed by the search engines.
Second, use social bookmarking sites like http://www.delicious.com or http://www.digg.com.
Finally, integrate your blog with your social networks. Connect your blog in your LinkedIn profile, add it to your Facebook page and feed it to Twitter.
Now your blog is all over the web. People will find it. Make sure you keep the content great and fresh. Have fun!
“Why should I use Social Media Marketing?” Have you ever asked yourself that question? Since Social Media Marketing is now more mainstream, a lot of people just want to participate in it because everybody else is doing it. ” If my competitor is using it, I have to use it too.” But there are some really great benefits for using Social Media Marketing – if your competitor is using it or not.
The first key benefit is to develop relationships with your potential, new and existing clients. Would it not be great if your clients let you know exactly what they want and what they need and you could create products and services directly geared toward those needs? Well, if you have a relationship with your clients, they will tell you exactly what they need – you just have to ask. By building a relationship with your clients, you build the “know, like and trust” factor as well. A client, who has a good relationship with you, will become a repeated client and will go ahead and tell other people about you and your product or service.
This brings me to the second key benefit of using Social Media Marketing: you attract business leads. You will attract them naturally by building relationships with your clients. If you go ahead and try very hard to collect leads, most likely they will come very slowly. It works a lot better if you have great content and are genuinely interested in the problems of your clients. The business leads will just come.
The third key benefit is to create awareness. Just by being in the social networks and by talking to people, you will generate awareness. Just simply by being there and by being you.
The fourth key benefit is to save money. Yes, you read right. With what other marketing method can you reach thousands of your target customers without spending money? Enough said about that.
The fifth key benefit is to build brand authority. When you are in the social networks and you answer questions, help people and just be you, you build the “know, like and trust” factor. If people trust you, they trust your brand. It is that simple.
The sixth key benefit is to generate exposure. If you “just” have a website, you will appear in a search result 1 or 2 times. If you are busy in the social networks, you will appear for the same search 40 times. That is exposure right there.
The seventh and final key benefit of using Social Media Marketing is that it is great for SEO. You have all you networks connected back with your website. When you answer a forum question, you add a link to your website. Everything links back to your website – and links do make a difference still.
The directories are all general directories. The guidelines by which I chose the directories were:
- Popularity of directory
- SEO statistics
- Quality
- No cost for site submission
Here are the Top Web Directories:
1) www.dmoz.org: Open Directory Project is the largest human-edited directory of the internet.
2) http://www.google.com/dirhp: It is Google – what else can I say?
3) http://www.jayde.com/: Directory since 1998.
4) http://www.mavicanet.com: Multilingual large directory.
5) http://www.worldsiteindex.com/: Good design and great categories.
6) http://www.directoryworld.net/: Good design, random listing in front.
7) http://www.littlewebdirectory.com/links.asp: It is free.
8) http://www.illumirate.com/: Nice design.
9) http://www.pegasusdirectory.com/: High rank for free directory.
10) http://www.somuch.com/: Good design, indexed by Google.
Why should you submit your website to general directories?
Each time you submit your page, you create a backlink to your website. Google ranks websites also by how many links they have. So, with each additional link, you work towards a higher Google ranking. Additionally, you gain online visibility by having the possibility to be found by more people. You get your website out there and you work towards a better ranking in Google – two very good reasons to submit to directories.
1. Build brand visibility
2. Great SEO, because quickly indexed by search engines
3. Increase website traffic
4. Great list building opportunity
5. Increase influence with target audience
6. Naturally promote products/services
7. Possibility to set-up multiple pages
