Why Social Media Is Becoming a Much Bigger Ranking Factor For Google

Social media is something that nearly every person has heard of or is a part of in one way or another with social sites such as Facebook and Twitter becoming incredibly popular over recent years. From the evidence we have seen this trend is only going to increase in the coming months and years.

Up until quite recently we have not really been able to tell how the big search engines such as Google views any businesses with good followings on websites such as Facebook and Twitter and whether it has any impact on how are ranking websites. Google did announce a few months back that they were now officially including Facebook ‘likes’ into their Algorithm as one of the many ranking signals they use to determine how to rank websites in their organic listings.

This is incredibly important because firstly Google is not renowned for volunteering information on any part of their Algorithm and so for web marketers all over the world, this really was a very interesting bit of information. Furthermore what we have also seen in recent months is that Google is moving away from content farms and article directories more with their recent ‘farmer update’ which is why a lot of websites have recently seen a drop in their long-tail keywords as article websites we a good place to use to help optimise for these less competitive key terms.

The excellent thing about social media is that it is an excellent way for companies to keep in touch with their customers and essentially convey promotions, new products and offers to them. So from a business’s perspective the fact is that social media platforms are a very valuable channel to communicate with customers and now they are a ranking factor for big search engines such as Google, there really is no excuse to not be focusing on developing your social media presence.

Another very interesting fact of 2010 is that the most visited site was not Google as it had been for many years but was now Facebook. This fact alone shows that Facebook is a factor that Google cannot ignore and as Facebook gears their social media site more towards businesses in the coming months then it can only mean Google will have to  make social media a bigger ranking factor.

So it seems that we are still at the very early stages of social media being a ranking factor for Google, however from what we are seeing this will surely grow in the coming months and so it is vital for any serious seo companies and internet marketers to start thinking about developing a successful social media strategy for their clients.

Bio:

Jon works for J21Media an affordable seo company based in the UK and is currently working alongside a jewellery box company called Queens Leather.

What makes effective link bait?

Sometimes it is not simply enough to pen a well written and informative blog post (or other content) for your website. If you want people to actually read your post and also increase the amount of traffic
coming into your site, then you are going to need some sort of bait to encourage people to link back to the blog in question and/or your website. In the industries of web marketing and SEO (search engine optimisation), these hooks are known as “link bait.”

But what constitutes link bait exactly? And what does the most effective bait entail?

Matt Cutts – an SEO expert employed by Google – describes link bait as simply “something people want to link to.” Link bait is supposed to provide outreach (the act of hunting and securing relevant and useful contacts) on your behalf. The bait can take the form of written or illustrated opinions or facts, images, videos, advice...the options are almost endless. The only limitation is that the content is of interest to a significant number of people. It goes without saying that link bait that does not provoke back links from an array of different places across the web has failed in its role.

That’s not to say you cannot target slightly more niche groups however. A piece of web content discussing the difference levels of “yobbish” behaviour contained between two competing major league football teams (which both have large followings; for example Liverpool and Manchester United) can still attract a lot of attention. It is important to remember however, that controversy will often be greeted with questions regarding the quality and/or authority of such content. Bad link bait and negative attention are not one and the same though. Let me explain with an example:
Journalist Richard Littlejohn penned an article (Why my wife's PoW grandad wouldn't mark a minute's silence for the Japanese) telling Daily Mail readers how the world should not send money, provisions or even pray for the wellbeing of the Japanese population in the wake of the devastation caused by the recent earthquake and resulting tsunami. The controversial statements saw UK Twitter feeds erupt with peoples distaste. But was the Daily Mail worried? Of course not – the paper is known for its sensationalistic positioning and the tweets drove thousands of people to visit and back link to the site via their own tweets and retweets (RTs) as this pie chart from HashTacking.com shows;
 

Creating a storm of backlash isn’t for everyone though and there are plenty of positive ways to get people to link to your site or blog. Detailed, instructional “how to” guides can generate a lot of interest as can exclusive information or interviews from key experts in whichever industry your website relates to. Solid information sources aside, you should always offer your audience something that none of your competitors (or anyone else on the web) has done previously.

Competitions (and therefore prizes!) provide instant incentive for back linking are probably one of the most effective link baits – especially if those who want to enter them can only do so if they link back are spread the details using social networking mediums such as Twitter and Facebook.

Lastly, it is imperative to remember that a good piece of link bait is useless should it be presented in an awful way. You should ensure that the page containing the link bait is aesthetically clean, well laid out easy to read and largely advertising free. Including all of the relevant social media bookmarking buttons (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, Del.icio.us...) will enable your content to be easily shared. Solid block of texts with no images does not make for an engaging page and content on such page is far less likely to read and therefore; shared.

Kat Cole has learnt a substantial amount regarding the art of link bait in her time as a marketing assistant for Easy Offices in Soho. Outside of working hours, Kat is a keen live music attendee and also enjoys (badly) playing guitar. 

YouTube debut and YouTube Turbocharge Advice

YouTube is one way to help turbocharge your blog or Website.

You can simply embed other peoples videos that add value, create playlists, or perhaps best of all, simply and cheaply create your own videos and upload them, using them to raise awareness, drive traffic, blah blah blah.

I've created my first ( non-professional, as in I did it, no camera crew, studio etc.) video to promote a hobby site.

I used the killer advice from Gideon and Yaro - so simple to implement!

7 Killer Tips For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos

Turbocharge yourself online with video - 7 simple killer tips

No question, online video is here and is big - and very easy to do.

My friend Gideon, using video on one of his own YouTube channels, and got like 67,400 views in just 8 weeks!

Think a few of these people would click through to your blog or Web site? Oh yeah!

Check out his:

7 Killer Tips For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos

Gideon does a great job, I learned a lot, and 5 minutes after watching this video, I had already implemented some of his advice.

I started another YouTube channel to promote a specific site (took a couple of minutes and it's free). I've optimized my video, which is dead simple if you follow the instructions, and am well on my way.

More later on how I'm using video (and some videos for you too), but for now
Click here for killer tips on turbocharging your online presence with video

I'm going to go watch it again now and take notes this time - seriously. It's short and easy to watch.

I think I'll be doing a couple of videos a week - they are so simple to do, and free to host on YouTube and many other online video services. I may stick with YouTube or may also place them on others like Viddler and Google video etc.

I suppose I should shoot a video on my results? :)

How To Rapidly Grow Your Blog or Web site Traffic

How do you rapidly grow your blog (or Web site traffic)?

There are some simple techniques that work that I've mentioned several times, including:

• Writing great content
• Commenting on other blogs
• Blogging regularly (at least until you are established)
• Participating in blog carnivals
• Including your keyword or keyphrase in your blog article

These all work, and work well, but aren't going to skyrocket your traffic and make you an overnight sensation. They are slow and steady techniques that pay off over time.

There are some other techniques, a little more advanced and perhaps time consuming than simply "commenting on other blogs" for example, that can rapidly grow your traffic.

They are NOT rocket science :) I've used many of them myself - they simply work.

Check out this great short video on how to rapidly grow your blog or Web site traffic.

You'll probably find at least a couple of techniques you can start on quickly. There is some work involved - no magic here, but sometimes results may seem magical!

Click here to grow your traffic and then let me know what you think. Leave a comment or drop me an email.

How to Promote Yourself With Blog Comments and More, Part II

How to Promote Yourself With Blog Comments, Part I - click here

Here's part two of how to promote yourself, your blog, your Website, your charity, your sleazy underworld pursuits, or anything else  using blog comments.

I'm just giving you the tools -- please play nicely now!

How do you make search engines jump up and down in excitement about how cool you or whatever you're promoting is, whether it's a charity or even something sleazy?

As I said last week, "blog comments are awesome. They let you enter someone else's Internet real estate and leave public statements, which can make you look smart, drive traffic to your blog or Web site, and make Google and the other search engines jump up and down in excitement about how cool you are too."

Did you know that most traffic on the Internet is driven by the search engines, especially by Google, which is #1 by a long shot?

That's why search engine positioning, where you show up in the search engine results, really matters a lot.

For example, my new Web site flyrodstripedbass.com, is getting over 80 visitors a day JUST FROM GOOGLE. And the visitors are sticking around and reading several pages because they like the content (good content is very important, but you know that right?).

We can't go into all the reasons right now as to why Google digs my new site, but one primary reason is because it has a lot of links to it from other Web sites and blogs. Google and the other search engines take each link as a "vote of confidence" -- if it's worth linking to, it must be valuable they reason.

Well, there are lots of ways to get links, including leaving blog comments, buying links (called "text link advertising"), registering with directories, etc.

But let's step back - the search engines:

IGNORE MOST LINKS FROM BLOG COMMENTS!

You see, there are two types of links.

• Ordinary links, called "do follow links" and
• No follow links, which search engines ignore

Most blog comments utilize no follow links, in part to combat comment spam.

All intelligent blog comments are valuable, because readers may see them and follow them to your blog or Web site.

Unfortunately, all do follow blog comments, even comment spam, are valuable as the search engines take them as a vote of confidence. That's why we see comments like "wrerw effwefwe ewewffew" left by "Cheap Vaigra."

This causes a link to be made with the anchor text (the clickable part) of  "Cheap Viagra" and if the comment is left on a "do follow" blog, the search engines not only take the link as a vote of confidence for the cheap Viagra site, but they also use the anchor text to help figure out what's important about the linked to site.

Leave a couple million comments like this using automated spamming software and some of them will be do follow and your site promoting cheap (and probably fake) Viagra will get more search engine traffic, you'll sell more cheap vaigra, and perhaps live long and prosper, although I hope you die a early death in prison you miserable spammer!

I'm assuming my readers are good people and we're just looking at mechanics here.
Of course they can be used for good as well as evil.

So, "do follow" comments, actually any "do follow" links are very valuable, especially if you can use keywords as your name, the anchor text.

So, how do you find "do follow" blogs?  Several ways:
(most spammers don't get this -- don't tell them!)

• There are do follow blog search engines, for example
  http://dofollow.thegermz.com/
• You can use the Firefox browser with the following plugin which highlights links
  depending on their follow status
  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5687
  Red is no follow, blue is do follow
• You could just look at the underlying HTML code!

There is one other method I suggest, but it costs $5 a month
(pretty cheap, huh?).

Easy Backlink Builder sends you 30 easy to get do follow links back to your site each month. They're not all blogs, but they all let you build do follow links back to whatever you're promoting, as long as you're nice, leave good comments, don't spam, follow sites terms of service, etc.

Let's look at two real (and ethical) Examples

#1) I have a Website on fly fishing, www.flyrodstripedbass.com

Now I do make some money from this site, but it primarily exists because I LOVE to fly fish, especially for Striped Bass.

I left comments on do follow fishing blogs to help build the sites importance to the search engines and get more traffic from them.

Actually I used Easy Backlink Builder as part of my strategy to help find places to (politely and respectfully) drop back links.

Hey, it's a fishing site, and I'm a fanatical fisherman. Leaving comments on fishing and related blogs makes perfect sense.

#2) "Bob Smith" (not his real name) has a common name. He has no Web site or blog of his own, but does use LinkedIn and considers his LinkedIn profile to be his home on the Internet.

If you Googled Bob, his LinkedIn profile showed up on page 7 of the search engine results. Everything else was some other Bob Smith.

Bob created a couple of backlinks to his profile, primarily using do follow blog comments (as well as leaving plenty of no follow blog comments), each week. Now, a few months out, if you Google Bob Smith he's THE NUMBER ONE RESULT!

So, Bob left a very few thoughtful comments each week, and he went from essentially unfindable to extremely findable!

Now as an aside, not all links are created equal. Links from important and related sites are worth more than links from obscure and unrelated sites, but pretty much all links matter.

Disclaimer: If you try Easy Backlink Builder I get enough money to buy a cup of coffee -- but not one of the expensive froufrou coffee drinks at Starbucks :)

SO:

• Build backlinks, but be nice!
• Bloggers don't need to be too concerned as bloggers naturally link to each other -- but "manually" creating a few links can and does make a big difference
• Many big companies including Fortune 500s spend a lot of effort building backlinks

OK, so why would someone have a "do follow" blog and how do you do it?
Stand by for part III!

How to Promote Yourself With Blog Comments, Part I

How to promote yourself, your blog, your Website, your charity, your sleazy underworld pursuits, or anything else using blog comments -  a quick two part series.

I'm just giving you the tools -- please play nicely now!

Blog comments are awesome. They let you enter someone else's Internet real estate and leave public statements, which can make you look smart, drive traffic to your blog or Web site, and make Google and the other search engines jump up and down in excitement about how cool you are too. Oh, and the  bloggers wll be happy to if you leave good comments.

First, some basics. Most blogs allow you to leave comments.

You type in your comment, your name, an email (never displayed), along with a URL (something like www.teddemop.com ).

The URL can be to your blog or Web site if you have one, or very simply point to your LinkedIn Profile (every professional should be in LinkedIn - it's complimentary).

The comment may be immediately displayed or it may be "moderated," meaning the blog owner wants to make sure your comment is OK before it gets published.

If you leave an intelligent and thoughtful comment, even if it disagrees with the blogger, some readers may click on your link and come find out more about you. Also, assuming you're using your full name, for example "Ted Demopoulos" instead of "Ted", the search engines will index your comments and associate them with your name. When people look you up online using the search engines, some of these comments will show up and hopefully make you look smart - at least if you leave intelligent comments!

There are plenty of ways to find appropriate blogs in your professional or other area of interest. High on the list is using the blog search engines like Technorati or Google Blog Search. Once you've found appropriate blogs, look at their blog rolls, lists of similar blogs in their sidebars, and you may find some more appropriate blogs.

Part II, "how to make Google and the other search engines jump up and down in excitement about how cool you or whatever you're promoting is, whether it's a charity, random commercial Web site like www.womanshairlossadvice.com, or even something sleazy (use your imagination here).

Part II, How to promote Yourself with Blog Comments and more - click here

Blog Directories - Should I submit My Blog?

A common question new bloggers ask is, "Should I submit my blog to blog directories?" Some bloggers will submit to hundreds of directories, while others believe this to be useless. When starting a new blog, I think it is worthwhile to submit your blog to a few blog directories.

You will get some initial and valuable links back to your blog, which hopefully the search engines will quickly find causing them to index your blog, so that it's including in search results. Also, search engines consider links to be a "vote of confidence." Anything worth linking to must have value, they assume, so the more links to your blog the better it must be. Don't necessarily expect anyone to follow the links, to get any visitors from the directory listings.

So how many blog directories should you submit to? Hundreds of blog directories? Some people do, but I believe that's a waste of time. Maybe 5-10 blog directories maximum is enough. Although search engines love links, they are smart enough to realize that a link from a blog directory is not as important as a link from an on-topic blog post or article.

I always submit to Technorati.com and a few others, maybe 5 or perhaps a few more. Some blog directories may want you to post a backlink or make you jump though other hoops -- I generally skip those. Life is complicated enough!

Not everyone agrees with me on this. Some experienced bloggers feel submitting to blog directories is entirely worthless and conversely some believe submitting to hundreds of them is worthwhile. If you are going to submit to hundreds of directories, you might consider outsourcing that work as it's time intensive.

So how do you find blog directories? Simple, Google "blog directory." The most important blog directories, at least in the eyes of Google, will be listed first.

Submitting is usually fast, although some may make it difficult - skip those! When you first start your blog, spend a few minutes submitting to 5 or 10 blog directories, and then concentrate on producing valuable content so hopefully others will link to you.

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

Blog Traffic: Why most Blogs NEVER get much

If you're famous, like Mick Jagger or Robert Scoble or Madonna, write it and they will come. You can write about anything you want, and lots of people will read it.

Unfortunately, you my friend are probably not famous, just like I'm not. If we write on whatever we find interesting and exciting, it's unlikely many other people will have matching interests.

Oh some may find your posts on the advances of bowling ball technology fascinating, but they probably won't care for your extensive coverage of laptop battery time extension techniques or any details of your belly button lint collection. And the belly button lint aficionados probably find bowling balls and batteries boring.

In other words, it's NOT about you - what you're interested in. No one cares about what you're interested in (unless you're famous), and very few people will have interests that parallel yours.

But wait, if it doesn't matter what you're interested in, what about all this stuff about "passion" and "passionate bloggers are successful bloggers" you keep hearing? How can you write passionately about something you're not interested in?

Well, you probably can't, but the solution is simple -- a one word answer:

FOCUS! I repeat, FOCUS!!

Write about ONE thing you are passionately interested in, maybe Nubian dwarf goat husbandry or American Civil War history or the evolution of belly button lint collections in museums. There are plenty of people, potential readers, for any ONE of those topics. Even belly button lint has 274,000 hits on Google, and yes there appear to be blogs on the topic too.

I'm writing about Web 2.0 stuff and how it affects business, things like blogging and podcasting etc. I'm NOT writing about fishing or Chinese cooking or biking or wine or many other things I'm passionate about, because it's not about me. And yeah, I should work about being more focused too . . .

But what about Robert Scoble? He's a blogger and his claim to fame is from blogging. Despite Robert being a great guy I read regularly he isn't very focused.

Well, you need to be and so do I if we care about traffic -- Robert is famous and> he started blogging in a simpler time when there was less competition.

And now I must leave you as I'm stranded in an airport and my laptop battery is almost dead. Fortunately I have the latest "Popular Nubian Dwarf Goat Husbandry" with me. Maybe I'll check my belly button too . . .

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

(this is an update of a previous popular post)

Blog Traffic - The Care and Feeding of Blog Commenters - 3 Tips

As you become a more popular blogger, people will start leaving comments on your blog. You may or not get a lot of comments, but by treating commenters well, you can turn many of them into regular readers if not fervent fans. Here are three tips to help.

1) Answer comments on your blog

Not all comments need responses, but many do. You can answer comments in additional comments, or sometimes with an entirely new blog post.

I find I answer the majority of comments in another comment, and often end up starting conversations this way.

Don't worry about getting so many comments that you can't answer them all! If you become that popular, just be happy and answer the comments you can.

2) Email commenters and thank them!

Commenters are special. Most people don't leave comments, perhaps only one percent or less. Consider emailing commenters and thanking them. They will remember and be more likely to visit your blog again and leave additional comments. Realize that many commenters may not be regular readers of your blog. Often they've just stumbled across your blog for the first time.

3) Interview particularly insightful commenters and post the interviews

This can be as simple as a short email interview, perhaps 3-5 questions. Most commenters will be flattered. And do you think the commenter/interviewee might send you some traffic, perhaps link to you or tell others? They usually will.

Interacting with others is a great way to build blog traffic, and a primary way to interact on a blog is through comments. By considering the tips above, you'll interact more effectively with people that leave comments and turn many of them into regular readers if not fervent fans.

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com