SEO is an incredible way to popularize your website online. It is also the most reasonable technique to have high rankings in the organic search engine results. SEO work starts by analyzing the search engine algorithm that tells how website ranks on the search engine and then using these techniques on your website. Successful SEO campaign results in generating more sale leads and more business for the company.
I am into SEO for the last 3 yrs. and from my prior experience my advice is that one should patiently learn all the workable techniques and then apply them to get your website ranked higher in search engines. You should try to avoid the probability of getting your website penalized by Google by using certain unethical tactics. I am hereby listing some ways which helps to stay clear of any penalties from search engines.
(1) Alter the link text in your inbound links
"Inbound links” refers to external links that point to your website. Try to follow correct way for creating good quality links to your website to avoid dropping of your website rankings on the search engines. Avoid using same link text more than 10-12 times to prevent from getting penalized by Google. Google can easily make out that you are doing this to increase SEO ranking of your website. The websites with lots of existing inbound links with different anchor text will never be in danger if they have variance in the link text.
(2) Generate good quality content if participating in affiliate programs
If you participate in affiliate programs for making money through commissions then focus on the quality of your content. The quantity should also be that much that it should be labeled a "thin affiliate" site. Try and add value to your potential visitors to mitigate the risks of getting penalized.
(3) Keep your content unique and informative
Content is a king and Google never favors the duplicate content. Try to keep the content on your website quite relevant to the product or service that you offer and convey your message via your website in a clear understandable manner. You can take reference from similar websites already present over the web. By keeping the content of your website unique would prevent your website from getting penalized by Google. Always remember.....the more unique the content is, the better your site will rank!
(4) Do not create too many inbound links in short time span
Don’t create too many inbound links in a short span of time and prevent yourself from being susceptible in Google eyes. Avoid making 500+ links over the night. This would surely aid in penalizing your website. Adopt a certain strategy of creating random number of links each day; this would lower the susceptibility level in the eyes of Google.
(5) Be careful about keyword density
Keyword density is the percentage of the total amount of targeted words in the content of your website. Do not use target keywords unnecessarily. Keep good content to avoid the penalty that might arise due to excess usage of keywords on any of your web pages. Google gauges this thing that you are doing just to increase its ranking on search engines. To play secure, I would recommend keeping your keyword density as low as 5%. Moreover, if user finds your website content useful then he will often visit your website.
(6) Do not to be too keyword specific in link text of navigation
In case you want to rank or optimize your website over certain keyword, you may use the target keyword in the navigation text instead of using the link text "home page" for your homepage. This works well for small websites (5 pages or less). It is best not to be too keyword specific if you have a large site which might give negative effect. Remember what I said about varying link text in point 3? Well this applies to link text on your website as well.
(7) Avoid irrelevant words
Try to use relevant keywords on your website which are of real value for your product or services. Using irrelevant keywords makes Google suspicious about you thence increasing the probability of getting penalized. This is not at all a good way to increase the ranking of your website.
(8) Avoid using sneaky redirects
Google doesn't seem to like web pages that serve the purpose of redirecting you to another page. Let's say you have a web page that ranks well for a particular keyword but only contains a link that takes you to another web page or site. Google doesn't like these type of redirects because the web page has no content a human user would be interested in; only a link to another web page. This can therefore be misleading if the page ranks high on Google. This is because the users who click through onto the site would be expecting to see some useful content related to the keyword it is ranking for.
(9) Avoid inter-linking domains
Basic SEO knowledge showcases that one way links work best. Its not like giving reciprocal links, it just makes Google a bit suspicious for your identity. Do not do much inter-linking for your domains. It would sound good initially but later will effect negatively ending up with getting penalties from Google. In order to link domain together, you may link more than two sites in a loop or circle. Doing this way you may achieve the SEO benefits.
(10) Never use hidden text or links
In early days of SEO, having hidden text and links on your website loaded with your target keywords used to work like a treat which used o result in good rankings. But this is completely unethical. That was the reason why Google altered their algorithm accordingly to rectify this issue. This should be avoided otherwise you could be called upon as using black hat SEO methods which increases the chances of getting banned.
Briefly, I can suggest the above mentioned tricks to prevent you site from getting penalized by Google search engine. This way you can definitely expect sure shot high SEO ranking for your website, thereby having a clear image in view of Google.
March 29, 2010
March 17, 2010
Life Lessons from Bill Gates
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, ‘learn from them’..
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
View more Rules
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, ‘learn from them’..
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
View more Rules
March 3, 2010
How to Increase and Improve Search Engine Visibility
Since long, we had seen and even tested various techniques and guidelines for generating search engine traffic. A decade back, SEO became a full time career for a few years. Since then so many methods have been evolving to control and manipulate the engines to get front page search results. As on date, scenarios have been changed.
Many of these earlier followed practices and techniques are still very much relevant as they were then, so here I am collating the key ones.
Commence with your Domain Name
Select the domain name, relatively short and easy to spell. Avoid hyphens and or unusual characters for branding purposes, than SEO. Search visibility remains there even with perplex, long character riddled domain, but such domain names are hard to remember without the assistance of a search engine.
Build Quality Inbound and Outbound Links
Your site is ranked by search engines based on the amount of inbound links it has from other sites. Spend some time and get authenticated sites linking back to you called inbound links; it influences the search engine ranking.
Google Page Rank
Websites are ranked with higher Page Rank if Google conceives them to be important and influential. Higher Page Rank gives better search results and rankings. Authoritative sites usually have high Page Rank. You should take care of it but do not focus completely on it.
Relevant Keywords on Web Address
Publish content on your site with relevant keywords with headline formatted in the permalink/web URL. For instance, if your site has a page with images on wild animals, format the URL like: http://www.yoursite.com/images/wild-animals.html or http://www.yoursite.com/wild-animals.html Mention the sub-directory with target keyword of the subject matter.
Headlines and Page Titles with Target Keywords
Along with relevant keywords in your URL, place the keywords in your headlines and page titles as well. It would help even if no other optimization is worked out otherwise it would be hard for search engine to spot your existence.
Include Blogs
Blogs are considered to be the major source information for everybody. Search engines give preference to blogs for fresh and timely content. If tweaked correctly it can be a powerful tool for search engine traffic generation. Configure your permalink structure immediately after installing your blog. Install plug-ins like "All in One SEO Pack" available for WordPress. You may also leverage RSS to convert search engine clicks into a return visitor.
Keywords as Anchor text
Generally, anchor text is weighted highly in search engine algorithms and its results since it gives descriptive information to search engines about the content of a hyperlinks destination. Avoid using "click here", it would hamper search engine visibility.
Web Analytics
In order to measure and understand your traffic patterns and behaviors do set up Google Analytics at the very start.
Use Sitemap
Sitemaps list down all the pages pertaining to a particular site that helps to notify search engine about URLs on your website available for crawling and indexing, which might be left undiscovered by Google's normal crawling process.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google's Webmaster Tools helps to see your website the way Googlebot looks at it. It finds out which sites link to yours, also looks for search queries that list your site and which of your site's pages are indexed, and also shows up certain errors (if any) Google encountered while crawling your website. Make your site as Google friendly as possible. This gives higher visibility in search results.
Publish Quality Content Frequently
Publish quality content on a regular basis so as to be frequently seen as more reliable than sites that seldom produce content. Keep on increasing content on your website to yield more indexed pages, in turn more visibility, increasing the quantity of search clicks to your pages.
Headline Tags
Use headline tags (h1, h2, etc.) for targeted keywords and phrases. Search engines recognizes and assigns greater value to keywords found within headline tags.
Do not Forget Other Search Engines
Do not overlook other search engines like Yahoo, MSN while you keep considering Google, the gorilla, that produces the biggest quantity of search traffic. Yahoo has a resource for web publishers, as does Microsoft to help you better optimize your pages for their engines.
Consistency
Keep on testing different permutations and combinations to understand the criteria the search engines looks for when indexing your pages. Focus on what works and run with it.
Last but not the least
If you have active participation in social media, you are already ahead of the game. To have profiles at Social Networking Websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter helps in getting indexed, and always rank on the top of the search results. This is even great if your objective is personal branding. You have to be active and maintain consistency to own your name in Google. Social media is the most invaluable tool for traffic generation, if executed correctly. User generated content and the applications that power them such as, blogs, wikis, videos, social networking sites, bookmarking, microblogging, etc are the leading mechanisms for search engine traffic, and keeps on increasing with time.
To optimize a website to be ranked higher in search engines is not very complex. Use of techniques suggested above will definitely pay off. You must not expect instant results. It takes time to build up content, establish inbound links, tweak and re-tweak.
Many of these earlier followed practices and techniques are still very much relevant as they were then, so here I am collating the key ones.
Commence with your Domain Name
Select the domain name, relatively short and easy to spell. Avoid hyphens and or unusual characters for branding purposes, than SEO. Search visibility remains there even with perplex, long character riddled domain, but such domain names are hard to remember without the assistance of a search engine.
Build Quality Inbound and Outbound Links
Your site is ranked by search engines based on the amount of inbound links it has from other sites. Spend some time and get authenticated sites linking back to you called inbound links; it influences the search engine ranking.
Google Page Rank
Websites are ranked with higher Page Rank if Google conceives them to be important and influential. Higher Page Rank gives better search results and rankings. Authoritative sites usually have high Page Rank. You should take care of it but do not focus completely on it.
Relevant Keywords on Web Address
Publish content on your site with relevant keywords with headline formatted in the permalink/web URL. For instance, if your site has a page with images on wild animals, format the URL like: http://www.yoursite.com/images/wild-animals.html or http://www.yoursite.com/wild-animals.html Mention the sub-directory with target keyword of the subject matter.
Headlines and Page Titles with Target Keywords
Along with relevant keywords in your URL, place the keywords in your headlines and page titles as well. It would help even if no other optimization is worked out otherwise it would be hard for search engine to spot your existence.
Include Blogs
Blogs are considered to be the major source information for everybody. Search engines give preference to blogs for fresh and timely content. If tweaked correctly it can be a powerful tool for search engine traffic generation. Configure your permalink structure immediately after installing your blog. Install plug-ins like "All in One SEO Pack" available for WordPress. You may also leverage RSS to convert search engine clicks into a return visitor.
Keywords as Anchor text
Generally, anchor text is weighted highly in search engine algorithms and its results since it gives descriptive information to search engines about the content of a hyperlinks destination. Avoid using "click here", it would hamper search engine visibility.
Web Analytics
In order to measure and understand your traffic patterns and behaviors do set up Google Analytics at the very start.
Use Sitemap
Sitemaps list down all the pages pertaining to a particular site that helps to notify search engine about URLs on your website available for crawling and indexing, which might be left undiscovered by Google's normal crawling process.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google's Webmaster Tools helps to see your website the way Googlebot looks at it. It finds out which sites link to yours, also looks for search queries that list your site and which of your site's pages are indexed, and also shows up certain errors (if any) Google encountered while crawling your website. Make your site as Google friendly as possible. This gives higher visibility in search results.
Publish Quality Content Frequently
Publish quality content on a regular basis so as to be frequently seen as more reliable than sites that seldom produce content. Keep on increasing content on your website to yield more indexed pages, in turn more visibility, increasing the quantity of search clicks to your pages.
Headline Tags
Use headline tags (h1, h2, etc.) for targeted keywords and phrases. Search engines recognizes and assigns greater value to keywords found within headline tags.
Do not Forget Other Search Engines
Do not overlook other search engines like Yahoo, MSN while you keep considering Google, the gorilla, that produces the biggest quantity of search traffic. Yahoo has a resource for web publishers, as does Microsoft to help you better optimize your pages for their engines.
Consistency
Keep on testing different permutations and combinations to understand the criteria the search engines looks for when indexing your pages. Focus on what works and run with it.
Last but not the least
If you have active participation in social media, you are already ahead of the game. To have profiles at Social Networking Websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter helps in getting indexed, and always rank on the top of the search results. This is even great if your objective is personal branding. You have to be active and maintain consistency to own your name in Google. Social media is the most invaluable tool for traffic generation, if executed correctly. User generated content and the applications that power them such as, blogs, wikis, videos, social networking sites, bookmarking, microblogging, etc are the leading mechanisms for search engine traffic, and keeps on increasing with time.
To optimize a website to be ranked higher in search engines is not very complex. Use of techniques suggested above will definitely pay off. You must not expect instant results. It takes time to build up content, establish inbound links, tweak and re-tweak.
February 17, 2010
How Online Business Networking could Effectively Leverages LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the most popular professional as well as business networking website. It is one of the businesses social networking website being used by numerous professionals to share useful information and also for the purpose of networking. Every day the participation at LinkedIn is increasing exponentially.
The excelling features of LinkedIn like listing your professional experience in your public profile and recommendations from previous and current employers, coworkers, clients, and other professional connections make it a quite good platform for building professional network. It is populated by a various types of individuals, including professionals and many entrepreneurs also. These people can become ideal prospects for your business. The profile may be used by the employers and even clients to locate the best available resources. Also, group discussion and Question-Answers sharing at LinkedIn: LinkedIn Groups facilitates discussion and information sharing in areas of common interest. The discussions are focused on specific domain areas and are quite helpful to specialized business needs.
You may find some workable methods for using LinkedIn as below:
a) Establish a credible profile, make it public - Your professional experience matters a lot and the recommendations on your profile make it more credible in order to be taken seriously. To have recommendations means a lot to enhance and in verification of your profile content.
b) LinkedIn Groups - The groups are monitored and administered by owner of that Group like in Facebook. To join a Group at LinkedIn, an application needs to be sent to the Group owner, who validates your profile and checks for your knowledge about the Group’s overall interest area. Do not abuse your membership. Your postings’ gets removed by Group owners in such a case. If they gauge that you are doing self-promotion then its assured you would be deleted from that particular Group.
c) LinkedIn Groups could be an effective feature to be leveraged for your business. If you contribute in group discussions effectively, and provide helpful information to a community, this helps to develop good professional relationships, and eventually establish sound contacts. These contacts could professionally help in future.
d) The views you share and your participation in a Group, determine your effectiveness in making connections and eventually helps to turn these connections into leads for your business.
e) You may use the professional contacts made via LinkedIn to be used otherwise. In case you find some person really interested in your offerings, you may contact them through their personal emails for further communication.
In short, try and focus on the techniques mentioned above and see how fast it could help to build up strong and huge workable professional network.
The excelling features of LinkedIn like listing your professional experience in your public profile and recommendations from previous and current employers, coworkers, clients, and other professional connections make it a quite good platform for building professional network. It is populated by a various types of individuals, including professionals and many entrepreneurs also. These people can become ideal prospects for your business. The profile may be used by the employers and even clients to locate the best available resources. Also, group discussion and Question-Answers sharing at LinkedIn: LinkedIn Groups facilitates discussion and information sharing in areas of common interest. The discussions are focused on specific domain areas and are quite helpful to specialized business needs.
You may find some workable methods for using LinkedIn as below:
a) Establish a credible profile, make it public - Your professional experience matters a lot and the recommendations on your profile make it more credible in order to be taken seriously. To have recommendations means a lot to enhance and in verification of your profile content.
b) LinkedIn Groups - The groups are monitored and administered by owner of that Group like in Facebook. To join a Group at LinkedIn, an application needs to be sent to the Group owner, who validates your profile and checks for your knowledge about the Group’s overall interest area. Do not abuse your membership. Your postings’ gets removed by Group owners in such a case. If they gauge that you are doing self-promotion then its assured you would be deleted from that particular Group.
c) LinkedIn Groups could be an effective feature to be leveraged for your business. If you contribute in group discussions effectively, and provide helpful information to a community, this helps to develop good professional relationships, and eventually establish sound contacts. These contacts could professionally help in future.
d) The views you share and your participation in a Group, determine your effectiveness in making connections and eventually helps to turn these connections into leads for your business.
e) You may use the professional contacts made via LinkedIn to be used otherwise. In case you find some person really interested in your offerings, you may contact them through their personal emails for further communication.
In short, try and focus on the techniques mentioned above and see how fast it could help to build up strong and huge workable professional network.
February 9, 2010
How “Social Media” being quoted by the professionals in Online Media industry.
It is well said "Content is king but marketing is queen, and the queen rules the household". Or we can say “Great Content Market Itself”.This is very true for Social Media. It is all about Word of Mouth. You have to be very communicative and interactive with your networks to keep them engaged with you. They will stay tuned and remain hooked with you unless and until they will find value in the engagements with you.
Its presence in a business today is increasing day by day. According to Forrester Research, it will be rising exponentially by 2014. Here is how “Social Media” being quoted by some of the professionals in Online Media industry.
“It is the future of everything on Web. There will be social networking sites for everything you could imagine. Instead of this, stumble upon mentality, it will focus and more demographically delineated. It will still be wide open but it will have an organized chaos mentality to it”.
“Where Time, Network, and Trust (TNT) intersects.”
“The Wild, Wild West... it's certainly evolving by the minute though. Refinement is coming and several players will emerge as leaders of their particular genres; genre being social, and professional. It's here to stay, no doubt. Jump on board or get run over!”
“To individuals, it is friendship and communication. To groups with a message, it is a way to get the message out. To businesses is it a way to obtain exposure and establish credibility. All together, this is so powerful that it will continue to grow and become major use of the internet”.
"At times remarkable because of its ease of use and ability to connect to a single person or masses, and at times scary because of its immenseness."
"It is not really a new concept. Today we see many different forums and communities for virtually any human need, personality and interest. The one common trait for all of the successful communities (past to present) are that they built value to sustain and then monetize their members."
"SM is marketing nirvana for those that are truly invested in managing customer relationships. The long term focus on Relationship Marketing is back in vogue and illustrates that corporate focus needs to be on a 12-36 month timeline, not a 3 month ROI on tactical ad campaigns. Really depends if the organization has the appetite to go that long."
"It is a tool for broadening conversation and creating community that, if used intelligently, can be valuable for sharing of knowledge and building relationships
It is easy, enjoyable, effective and economical. It seems like a day will come when social networking tools will become fee-based."
"SM is Business. It's the direction that all media is moving. It's not a fad or a temporary thing. In 2008 we called it Web 2.0; early 2009 we called it Social Media. Now, in late 2009 people are referring to it as Media and Advertising.
It's a platform for having a (meaningful) conversation, in my opinion, through which one may be able to build the authority and influence."
"LinkedIn is the business meeting, FB is the hallway conversation, and Twitter is the cocktail party.
It’s a big honking' volume. Customers share recommendations (good and bad) with their friends. Humans have always wanted to be heard and to connect.
It is taking over as the best way to get the word out and target your message. I've found it very productive already. Work is flying in!"
"Social Media is an Opportunity and a Blessing too, a tool for sharing, collaborating and marketing"
"It is a communication channel to converse and engage directly with your customers, friends, fans, opponents, decision-makers, and thought-leaders.
It is literally changing the way individuals, businesses, governments, etc communicate. The one to one marketing model is over. It is now many to many, there is no turning back."
Some neural or negative quotes are as :
"Social media is expanding our ability to connect and share corporate as well as personal information in ways that weren't available in the past. This presents new challenges and opportunities, but we cannot forget that authenticity and quality are still much more important than quantity when it comes to true and viable business relationships."
"It will ultimately fail since the number of "people" who want to know you for selfish reasons far out-weighs the number of people you know or will ever want to know you for "personal" reasons. This ratio dictates the security platforms that surround all SM's, thus draining their lifeblood (connectivity) before they even get started!"
"When you put thoughts or ads in newspaper, it might reach 1 Lac people and might interest 5K people (5%). But on FB, it will reach approx. 5 crores and will interest only 5 Lac (1%)."
"SM may give reach to mass audience but it makes difficult for business to pull right kind of people to turn them into customers compare to other media. Other media allow you to reach targeted audience, whereas it lets you to connect with the entire pool of users in any network."
"Finding customers through SM is like finding water in desert. It is a try to filter the 10% valuable information vs. 90% waffle. Just like a black hole that sucks you in."
Last but not the least:
"The problem is that so many people still operate in a Web 2.0 mindset! Those days are gone. The two worlds are no longer independent of each other. The relationships we make in real life carry over into the virtual realm, and vice-versa. It’s a marriage and the strength of each will sustain the other. Social Media isn't going anywhere. In fact, there is only growth in the future."
Its presence in a business today is increasing day by day. According to Forrester Research, it will be rising exponentially by 2014. Here is how “Social Media” being quoted by some of the professionals in Online Media industry.
“It is the future of everything on Web. There will be social networking sites for everything you could imagine. Instead of this, stumble upon mentality, it will focus and more demographically delineated. It will still be wide open but it will have an organized chaos mentality to it”.
“Where Time, Network, and Trust (TNT) intersects.”
“The Wild, Wild West... it's certainly evolving by the minute though. Refinement is coming and several players will emerge as leaders of their particular genres; genre being social, and professional. It's here to stay, no doubt. Jump on board or get run over!”
“To individuals, it is friendship and communication. To groups with a message, it is a way to get the message out. To businesses is it a way to obtain exposure and establish credibility. All together, this is so powerful that it will continue to grow and become major use of the internet”.
"At times remarkable because of its ease of use and ability to connect to a single person or masses, and at times scary because of its immenseness."
"It is not really a new concept. Today we see many different forums and communities for virtually any human need, personality and interest. The one common trait for all of the successful communities (past to present) are that they built value to sustain and then monetize their members."
"SM is marketing nirvana for those that are truly invested in managing customer relationships. The long term focus on Relationship Marketing is back in vogue and illustrates that corporate focus needs to be on a 12-36 month timeline, not a 3 month ROI on tactical ad campaigns. Really depends if the organization has the appetite to go that long."
"It is a tool for broadening conversation and creating community that, if used intelligently, can be valuable for sharing of knowledge and building relationships
It is easy, enjoyable, effective and economical. It seems like a day will come when social networking tools will become fee-based."
"SM is Business. It's the direction that all media is moving. It's not a fad or a temporary thing. In 2008 we called it Web 2.0; early 2009 we called it Social Media. Now, in late 2009 people are referring to it as Media and Advertising.
It's a platform for having a (meaningful) conversation, in my opinion, through which one may be able to build the authority and influence."
"LinkedIn is the business meeting, FB is the hallway conversation, and Twitter is the cocktail party.
It’s a big honking' volume. Customers share recommendations (good and bad) with their friends. Humans have always wanted to be heard and to connect.
It is taking over as the best way to get the word out and target your message. I've found it very productive already. Work is flying in!"
"Social Media is an Opportunity and a Blessing too, a tool for sharing, collaborating and marketing"
"It is a communication channel to converse and engage directly with your customers, friends, fans, opponents, decision-makers, and thought-leaders.
It is literally changing the way individuals, businesses, governments, etc communicate. The one to one marketing model is over. It is now many to many, there is no turning back."
Some neural or negative quotes are as :
"Social media is expanding our ability to connect and share corporate as well as personal information in ways that weren't available in the past. This presents new challenges and opportunities, but we cannot forget that authenticity and quality are still much more important than quantity when it comes to true and viable business relationships."
"It will ultimately fail since the number of "people" who want to know you for selfish reasons far out-weighs the number of people you know or will ever want to know you for "personal" reasons. This ratio dictates the security platforms that surround all SM's, thus draining their lifeblood (connectivity) before they even get started!"
"When you put thoughts or ads in newspaper, it might reach 1 Lac people and might interest 5K people (5%). But on FB, it will reach approx. 5 crores and will interest only 5 Lac (1%)."
"SM may give reach to mass audience but it makes difficult for business to pull right kind of people to turn them into customers compare to other media. Other media allow you to reach targeted audience, whereas it lets you to connect with the entire pool of users in any network."
"Finding customers through SM is like finding water in desert. It is a try to filter the 10% valuable information vs. 90% waffle. Just like a black hole that sucks you in."
Last but not the least:
"The problem is that so many people still operate in a Web 2.0 mindset! Those days are gone. The two worlds are no longer independent of each other. The relationships we make in real life carry over into the virtual realm, and vice-versa. It’s a marriage and the strength of each will sustain the other. Social Media isn't going anywhere. In fact, there is only growth in the future."
February 8, 2010
Transparency in Business
There is hardly a conversation about social media today without discussing the concept of transparency. Customers and stakeholders increasingly expect it as the new operating standard.
Transparency is to be open, honest, and accountable and about responsibility. People listen and make evaluations and decisions based upon what you say. To make your business more transparent:
a) Be Real — Spread Awareness about What You Know
Talk about the things that you are aware of. Just stick to this. Then make sure to specialize in specific related areas.
b) Share Opinion, But Listen as well Stay Open to Other Views
You are fully responsible about the information you share. If you find someone else’s views good, then do appreciate. That kind of openness earns respect. Sharing your opinion is actually a part of marketing strategy.
c) Be Honest
Put all the appropriate details. Do not neglect anything that could be important for anybody else, it might affect your online credibility.
d) Be Well-timed and Responsive
Respond instantly. Being a part of social media, remember that timeliness impacts your success and failure. At the moments of controversy, timeliness plays significant role.
e) Consider Grouping
None of us can work as an island in social media world. Transparency means creating groups and communities. Educate customers and generate ideas for new products and services. Targeting right audiences makes lot of difference.
Sometimes, it’s hard to share the truth openly. But adopting transparency would definitely help to be more real, honest, and creditworthy and connects better with customers makes lot of difference.
Transparency is to be open, honest, and accountable and about responsibility. People listen and make evaluations and decisions based upon what you say. To make your business more transparent:
a) Be Real — Spread Awareness about What You Know
Talk about the things that you are aware of. Just stick to this. Then make sure to specialize in specific related areas.
b) Share Opinion, But Listen as well Stay Open to Other Views
You are fully responsible about the information you share. If you find someone else’s views good, then do appreciate. That kind of openness earns respect. Sharing your opinion is actually a part of marketing strategy.
c) Be Honest
Put all the appropriate details. Do not neglect anything that could be important for anybody else, it might affect your online credibility.
d) Be Well-timed and Responsive
Respond instantly. Being a part of social media, remember that timeliness impacts your success and failure. At the moments of controversy, timeliness plays significant role.
e) Consider Grouping
None of us can work as an island in social media world. Transparency means creating groups and communities. Educate customers and generate ideas for new products and services. Targeting right audiences makes lot of difference.
Sometimes, it’s hard to share the truth openly. But adopting transparency would definitely help to be more real, honest, and creditworthy and connects better with customers makes lot of difference.
January 26, 2010
Top Social Media Channels to Optimize a Website
Search Engine Optimization is a hypercritical attempt to rank a website higher in the search engines so that with the help of relevant keywords, search engines like Google will find the website on the first page of Google. Further, the objective is to optimize so as to be found online as easily as possible.
You may look at some of the pointers below to optimize top most social media channels greatly in use.
Facebook
You can participate in Facebook by making your personal profile, groups and Pages. As you all are aware that you can promote and optimize your website using Facebook but how you can purpose it efficiently drive traffic to your website is of utmost significance.
To efficiently use Facebook, make a group or page profile for your business instead of personal since they are much more transparent to search engine crawlers. Choose a vanity URL that contains your keywords. When you post content, always include video or imagery because Facebook users like visuals more than plain text. Try to keep updates at least 2-3 times per week. And then using Analytical tools for insights, you may analyze the number of interactions and overall engagement with your page and posts.
Blogs
In order to showcase true commitment and passion via blogs and to stand out from a crowd, you must sustain over long periods of time with good frequency. The initial thing needed would be to buy your own domain name rather than renting one. Keep regular update with new unique new content and also promote your Blog on Twitter regularly since Google now has feature called real time search feed into Twitter API. You may include share buttons to other social media channels also so that visitors can add your blog and posts.
YouTube
The emerging facts and figures showcase the increasing impact of Social Media “Online Video”. Initially, create your own YouTube Channel and mention the link of your blog or website in the description section for your video to link back to your site. Do mention the category and the tags of your video in tags section. Now you may also promote your YouTube video on Twitter.
Twitter
Twitter is a great way to connect, communicate and promote your content from your blog or website. You should add your website’s URL in your profile info. Also, place a “retweet” button on your blog articles and integrate your Twitter URL within your site’s Global Footer appearing at the bottom of every page of your site. This helps to drive your Twitter URL up in the search engines. Do include “Follow me on Twitter” buttons on your emails and blog. Try to shorten your tweets to max. 120 characters so that it allows space for people to “Retweet” your “Tweet” with their comments like “Good post”
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is one of the world’s largest professional networks which is growing rapidly and is considered to be one of the top social media channels. LinkedIn helps to connect to your trusted professional contacts so as to exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals. You must optimize this platform to enhance you and your company’s brand. Initially create a public profile to build an on-line presence for yourself, use its questions and answers feature to start conversations, create community, and position yourself as an expert in that particular subject, start conversations, and answer questions to endorse your candidacy and expertise so that it can drive good traffic. Do activate Twitter and LinkedIn interfaces on the homepage of your website.
Following these top Social Media Channels definitely helps to optimize your website so as to rank higher on search engines.
You may look at some of the pointers below to optimize top most social media channels greatly in use.
You can participate in Facebook by making your personal profile, groups and Pages. As you all are aware that you can promote and optimize your website using Facebook but how you can purpose it efficiently drive traffic to your website is of utmost significance.
To efficiently use Facebook, make a group or page profile for your business instead of personal since they are much more transparent to search engine crawlers. Choose a vanity URL that contains your keywords. When you post content, always include video or imagery because Facebook users like visuals more than plain text. Try to keep updates at least 2-3 times per week. And then using Analytical tools for insights, you may analyze the number of interactions and overall engagement with your page and posts.
Blogs
In order to showcase true commitment and passion via blogs and to stand out from a crowd, you must sustain over long periods of time with good frequency. The initial thing needed would be to buy your own domain name rather than renting one. Keep regular update with new unique new content and also promote your Blog on Twitter regularly since Google now has feature called real time search feed into Twitter API. You may include share buttons to other social media channels also so that visitors can add your blog and posts.
YouTube
The emerging facts and figures showcase the increasing impact of Social Media “Online Video”. Initially, create your own YouTube Channel and mention the link of your blog or website in the description section for your video to link back to your site. Do mention the category and the tags of your video in tags section. Now you may also promote your YouTube video on Twitter.
Twitter is a great way to connect, communicate and promote your content from your blog or website. You should add your website’s URL in your profile info. Also, place a “retweet” button on your blog articles and integrate your Twitter URL within your site’s Global Footer appearing at the bottom of every page of your site. This helps to drive your Twitter URL up in the search engines. Do include “Follow me on Twitter” buttons on your emails and blog. Try to shorten your tweets to max. 120 characters so that it allows space for people to “Retweet” your “Tweet” with their comments like “Good post”
LinkedIn is one of the world’s largest professional networks which is growing rapidly and is considered to be one of the top social media channels. LinkedIn helps to connect to your trusted professional contacts so as to exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals. You must optimize this platform to enhance you and your company’s brand. Initially create a public profile to build an on-line presence for yourself, use its questions and answers feature to start conversations, create community, and position yourself as an expert in that particular subject, start conversations, and answer questions to endorse your candidacy and expertise so that it can drive good traffic. Do activate Twitter and LinkedIn interfaces on the homepage of your website.
Following these top Social Media Channels definitely helps to optimize your website so as to rank higher on search engines.
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